The Phantom of Harrison High
by BleedingHeartConservative
Summary: Someone at Harrison HS has been reading POTO and taking it too seriously. About bullying, peer pressure, isolation, cruelty. "T" for bad language, & mild violence. Public Service Announcement:chapter 42. NOW POSTING EPILOGUES, EXTRAS, AND DELETED SCENES.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** First of all, for those who know how I usually post, do NOT get excited. This is NOT going to be updated daily, or weekly. It MIGHT squeak by at monthly, but more than likely it'll be only when the mood strikes me. Additionally, for those who know my normal POTO stuff (typically VERY angsty, with a recent wild run of very funny) this is a completely different type of stuff. I haven't even decided how I feel about it yet. It's sort of a combination between a modern retelling and a phantom-inspired non-retelling modern story. And also I'm not yet sure how committed I am to it, so just bear with me, okay? I also wanted to announce that I just posted something a little goofy over at my fictionpress account and I'd love to have some comments on it. It's more out-of-character stuff from me (I'm in a weird mood lately) but I'd love some comments. Fictionpress works just like here, so if you're not a member over there but are willing to review, I think you can review anonymously just like one can here. FFN won't let me put a link here, but if you go to Fiction Press DOT COM my name is the same as it is here, and I have three things posted there. The one I JUST posted is the one with "police" in the title. If you want to take a look at the others too, though, I'd be incredibly appreciative of that as well. Thanks!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Leroux or Webber or their versions of _The Phantom of the Opera,_ but I don't see any reason why my characters can't read and watch them, respectively, and discuss them, so I'm not sure this disclaimer is necessary.

* * *

I didn't even know _The Phantom of the Opera_ was a book when I met that guy. I only knew the musical. And, I mean, who _doesn't_ know that musical? And who has _ever_ heard of that book?

Turns out I would have found out _eventually_ that it was a book, though, because even though we only have to take two years of a language to graduate, my dad really wanted me to take four. "You can't learn enough of a language in two years," he'd tell me. I don't know how he thought he knew. After all, he hadn't taken even one. Whatever. So Madame Welsh would have made me translate the "abridged for language learners" version of Leroux's creepy book senior year anyway (and the actual version of The Little Prince junior year) even if none of the rest of this had happened, but I suppose had I fumbled through the watered-down French version, literally translating word for word, I probably would have hated it. And of course, I wouldn't have this story of my own to write now. So I guess... No... I'm not going to say it's better this way because in a lot of ways, it's worse.

Yeah, my name really _is_ Christine, but that's not my fault. Talk to my mom if you have a problem with it. And I can tell you right off that she didn't name me after Christine Daae. She hadn't even _heard _of her. I mean, the musical came out in 1986, so I guess it's _possible,_ but my mom's not into musicals. And she certainly didn't read the book. Not that one, anyway. She read a different one. It was by Stephen King. Yeah. She named me after a _car_. I learned that sophomore year when Mrs. Surmacz made us read these excerpts from a book called _House on Mango Street_ by Sandra Cisneros. The narrator's name is Esperanza, which means "hope" but she thinks it means "too many letters" because her English speaking friends can't pronounce it. So Mrs. Surmacz (whom Axl calls Hitler, because she's so strict) got this great idea that we should all imitate Cisneros's style and write about our own names. Oh joy. We all got to go home and ask our parents why they named us this or that. I'm sure it annoyed most parents. Then again, maybe not. Most kids didn't do the assignment. I did. I'm a goody-two-shoes that way. (Yeah. I know. Hardly anyone uses that expression anymore. But I do. Because my grandma uses it. And no, mum and dad didn't die, and grandma's name is _not_ Valerius. Don't be ridiculous.) Anyway, I did the assignment and found out my mother named me after some young guy's demon car that gets jealous and kills people. Imagine what _that_ did for my self esteem.

But let's get to the part about Erik. That's what you really want to hear, isn't it? No, his name isn't really Erik, but it's high school. We all call Scott "Axl," and that's not his name, either. And before you get the wrong idea, it's not because Scott looks anything like that 80's metal band guy my brother used to listen to. It's Axl because it sounds like the beginning of accident, and Axl has a lot of those. Freshman year he was the most accident prone guy around. I don't remember when and how exactly we made the leap from him "an accident waiting to happen" to just calling him Axl, but we did and I'm told I started it. And the name just stuck. So yeah.) They have their nicknames for me, too. It's something you get used to.

So I guess it sort of started junior year when Mr. Akers got the great idea to do _Phantom_ as our spring musical. Really, we should have all seen it coming. We did _Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat_ my freshman year and _Cats_ my sophomore year. Old Akers was on a six year Andrew Lloyd Webber bender, and we were only three years into it. Of course, seniors always get preference for the lead parts, so I shouldn't have stood a chance in hell, to be honest, but several years prior to that Akers pulled some weird stuff and had the two leads for _Peter Pan_--Peter and Wendy--both learn both parts and take turns performing them. No kidding. It worked out so well that the following year two other girls both played the lead in _Hello Dolly_ on alternating weekends. Come to think of it, he might have gotten the idea from Webber's Phantom in the first place. Did you know that they always have two Christines? Not just one and her understudy, but two. Well, it worked out so amazingly well at the high school level that Akers decided to cast every musical that way from that point on, and he did. Does wonders for everyonhe's self esteem, too, because twice as many people get big parts. Yeah. They're big on self esteem around here.

Anyway, he did that for _Dolly_ and _Peter Pan _and _Fiddler on the Roof,_ and then he went nuts on Andrew Lloyd Webber stuff, so he did it with that stuff, too. Until we got to _Phantom._ But if there are always two Christines in a Webber production, that meant we had to have four. If I haven't said yet that Akers was a crazy man I should have because it's true. But I wouldn't complain about that, since it worked out for me. It's always nice to have a little less competition, I suppose. Equal opportunity for boys meant we had two Phantoms (you might have noticed he doesn't even have a name in the musical) and two Raouls. There aren't four senior sopranos with any kind of vocal talent to pull off all that crazy stuff in the abduction scene. As a matter of fact, it was tough finding four Christines with both the junior and senior classes to pick from. And I've been taking vocal lessons since I was what, eight? So yeah. I got it.

So I suppose that's where it started, but it could have started _and_ ended there. But it didn't. Because of that guy in my civics class.

So I guess it _really_ started in _civics_ when that guy saw my score and told me it was his favorite book. First off, he poked me in the back really hard with his pencil, I think. I turned around fast because I figured it was one of my friends being deliberately annoying. I whirled around and it was this guy I have never talked to in my entire life. I stared at him for a moment and I could not think of a single thing to say. To tell the truth, I was sort of freaked out because he was one of those people that nobody talks to and with good reason. He weighed about twice what a guy his height should so his eyes were sort of squinted shut above by his enormous cheeks, but what I noticed right off was that his skin was not all one even color. As I stared at him a moment longer, I realized there were scaly patches and I hoped whatever he had wasn't contagious.

"That's my favorite book," he said.

"Huh?" I was rendered absolutely inarticulate, which is unusual. I usually talk a lot, and I take a lot of advanced placement classes, so I'm not the type for grunting monosyllabic nonsense at people during class. But my mind simply wouldn't work. Did he say 'book?'

"That" he said, pointing. "It's my favorite book." He smiled, or at least, he tried to. His immense jowels wouldn't allow his mouth the extra space.

"Uh... It's not a book, it's a musical." I think I said. Then, for emphasis I added, "_Duh._" I don't think of myself as a rude person ordinarily, but it was so obviously _not a book_ sitting there on my desk, and he was so obviously that guy who no one talks to. And this was _Civics!_ And Mr. Crovak gives really difficult tests. So I wanted to silence him as quickly as possible.

I think.

Come to think of it, if I'd really wanted to silence him, I could've said "Mmmm," and turned away. Or pretended not to hear. Or just rolled my eyes. Come to think of it, I can't even believe he spoke to me at all. He never talks to anyone but the teachers. I guess I wasn't really trying to do anything specific. I guess ultimately he caught me off guard and I didn't know what to say. So I said the first thing that popped into my head, which was, admittedly, pretty mean.

But anyway, he said, "No, it was a book _first_. And the book was _better._ _Duh."_

I was surprised he answered back in the same sarcastic tone I had. I guess I'm no better than the rest of my rotten school in that regard because I was really surprised that someone like him had the nerve to talk to someone like me that way. That sounds awful, but you'd have to have seen him. Anyway, I guess my emotions must have shown on my face because right away he said "Sorry," and dropped his head a bit so his hair hung over his squinty eyes.

I couldn't help it. I softened. I shrugged and started to say something like it was all right.

"But it really _is_ a book," he said.

"_No._ It _isn't_." (_Why_ was I having this conversation?)

"Do you want to bet?"

"What?"

"I said 'do you want to bet?'"

"What? I mean no. Of course not. What would we bet?"

"I don't know." Looking back, I think his smile said he most certainly did know. "Bragging rights? Being right?" That grin suggested he was banking on far more. "I'll be the one who can say 'I told you so.'"

"Whatever."

"It was written in 1909. Or at least, the first part of it was published that year. It wasn't published all at once. The author is Gaston Leroux. He's French. Obviously. You probably could figure that out since you take French. Anyway--"

I interrupted him. "How did you know I take French?" I didn't mean to say it quite so rudely, but that's how it came out, and once words are out, well, you can't very well suck them back in.

He blinked at me a couple of times and shifted his bulk awkwardly in his seat. "I'm in your class," he mumbled.

I turned around after that, not because I felt stupid or ashamed but because I felt Mr. Crovak's eyes on me. Whoops. I glanced around the room. A couple of people besides Mr. Crovak were looking at me as well. I rolled my eyes at Savannah and pretended to be annoyed. She snorted. Behind me that kid's desk groaned under his immense weight. Crovak went on with his lecture.

* * *

**Shameless Begging:** Like always, I'm always unsure of something new when I start posting it. Please leave a comment or two so I know whether to go on or not. Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** I know it's been a while and I'm very sorry. Truly, I have NEVER waited this long in between posts, and it feels odd beyond belief. But today I saw this student eating an apple in the cafeteria that contains the hollow pillars (yeah, it really does! For. Real. And I get to work there) and I remembered that I really needed to update this. So here you are. Hope you enjoy. I apologize profusely that "Erik" does not make a bigger appearance in this chapter.

* * *

By the time the bell rang I was so overwhelmed at the number of 'terms to know" and 'check for understanding' questions that I had completely forgotten the entire exchange had taken place. No one else had though, apparently, so I was reminded of it almost immediately after I forgot.

"What'd that guy want?" Savannah asked tossing her hair.

"What guy?"

"_You_ know. That _guy_!" I felt a chill run down my spine and grinned. "Nothing yet," I told her. He hasn't called."

"Who hasn't called?"

I let my hair fall over my face and in my best soap-opera voice I answered, "The _guy_."

"Eww!" she responded. And she shuttered.

"What?" I felt my cheeks grow hot. There's nothing worse than being pale; as if it weren't bad enough that I burned to a crisp almost instantly when we marched in the parade, I also blush red like a beet whenever something embarrassing happens--even if I don't yet know what it is. That's what was happening there. From the way Savannah said it, I knew I'd done something very wrong, and yet, the last I heard, she'd thought that Ryan on the wrestling team was hot, too. "What?" I asked again. "All I said was Ryan hasn't called."

"Oh!" Her expression of "ew" turned to one of awe in an instant and some of the heat drained away. "Oh, _Ryan_ hasn't called."

"Right. He hasn't. Jeez, what did you _think_ I meant?"

"I thought you meant your boyfriend from Civics."

"Civics?"

"Yeah."

"Boyfriend?"

"Yay-ah."

The look on her face was obviously one of ridicule. "Crovak?" I asked her, the humiliating redirection resurfacing in my mind.

She laughed aloud. "Oh my gawd, Christine," she gushed. "Crovak? He's so _old_!"

I shrugged and flipped my hair, but I felt the heat rising in my cheeks again. "Don't be rotten," I said. "He's not _that_ old. It's not like he's Kukich or something." (Our sociology teacher. Positively ancient. Shouldn't there be a mandatory retirement age for teachers?)

"Ugh!" Savannah pushed me in disgust. "Yuck," she said. But she was still smiling. "Quit screwing with me, C. You know who I mean."

"What?"

"Oh stop playing, girl."

I opened my mouth to say something back but I heard the melodic bong of the warning bell system. Savannah cussed and turned. I ran the remaining length to pre-calculus, the ringing of the bell and my entering the room happening so closely together that one might have thought one announced the other.

"Nice of you to join us, Christine," Mrs. Malley said, glancing up at me over her old-lady glasses.

I grinned. "Thanks." One thing about Malley is she just can't stay mad like any other teacher. You smile at her, you're off the hook.

I sank into my seat as she moved toward the overhead projector, a bunch of markers jutting between her fingers like claws on some math-teacher monster.

"Psst!" someone behind me whispered. I whipped around.

April.

She said something to me but I didn't even hear it because as I whirled around to see who was behind me, I remembered. And then I realized. Who Savannah meant by my Civics Boyfriend. _That_ guy. _Oh_. Ugh. How long would it take to live _that _down?

"Well?" April hissed.

"Well what?"

"I said 'You got an extra pencil?' What's the matter with your ears?"

"Shhh!" I gave her a pencil to shut her the hell up and spun around again. I let my eyes go out of focus as I stared at the purple marker on the overhead and thought of nothing but finding Savannah as soon as class ended.

Luck was not on my side that day, however. I didn't see Savannah in the hall the next period, and then it was lunch time. Savannah and I don't have the same lunch period because of athletics classes. She's in several sports--I guess it was soccer season just then--and my only activities were drama and majorettes. Only, I say. Like that doesn't keep me busy enough. All the same, it's not like being in everything like Savannah. So I resigned myself to looking for her before sixth period French.

No such luck, again. Savannah had all but disappeared off the face of the planet. That guy though, obviously hadn't, I noticed when I walked into French class.

How had I never noticed him before? It wasn't like he was easy to miss sitting there in that giant tent of a school-green wind-breaker. _Why_ was he wearing a windbreaker anyway? It was plenty warm, and we were _indoors_. I felt so annoyed all the sudden for no reason in particular. Fortunately, I don't sit near him (at least I didn't on that seating chart at that time) and he didn't go out of his way to talk to me. I dashed out the door as quickly as possible and made it to Economics so fast Mr. Edelman joked that the bells must be off schedule.

Eyeroll. Mr. Edleman is at least sixty-years old with a pot belly and bald head, but he makes up for it by letting what hair he does have grow down his back to his waist, wearing tie-dyed ties and mis-matched suits and making jokes that he thinks break down the barriers between our generations. In reality, the whole picture just makes everyone think he's an old hippie who did too many drugs way back and never quite sobered up. I can see that, really. He's odd as hell. But he's not on drugs, that's obvious. He's way too serious about school to be on drugs. Being in his class is a cross between a gameshow and hell. He yells out things like "demand is" and then points at you. Before you can figure out whether he's asking for a definition or an example he yells "Too slow! Do your homework next time!" and points at the next kid while he repeats his prompt. It couldn't be any more stressful if there was a buzzer on my desk and my entire future was on the line. Which it is. Because you have to take economics junior or senior year and you absolutely cannot graduate without it.

I finally caught up with Savannah after the 45 minutes of anxiety that was Edelman's Endless Economics.

"Yeah, right," I said as I fell into step beside her.

"Right what?"

"Yeah, right, he's my boyfriend, you dope."

She giggled. "You're _still_ thinking about him?" She put her hands over her heart and made dreamy eyes at me. "It _must_ be love!"

I gave her a shove and opened my mouth to reply, but never got the chance because at that second Ryan walked by and said "Hey Chris." My thoughts scattered like frightened pigeons.

"Too late, Ryan" Savannah started.

I punched her in the side. _Hard._ And she shut up.

I gripped her by the elbow. "You will drop that freak from Civics this instant and never breathe his name aloud again," I told her.

She ducked her head in response. "Jeez, Chrissy," she said, rubbing her elbow when Ryan disappeared from view, "abuse me why don't you?"

"Sure," I told her and gave her another hearty shove.

And that was the last I heard about that guy from Civics.

* * *

Until the next day when he poked me in the shoulder with his pencil, I mean. I whipped around same as the day before, but I lost my momentum and my nerve as soon as our eyes met, same as the day before. "What?" I hissed.

"I brought you something," he said.

"Oh." Creepy. I said all of two words to him the day before, and now he's bringing me gifts. Just what I needed. "What?"

"This." He reached below his desk and pulled on his backpack, which stayed put because it had gotten stuck somehow. I rolled my eyes. He pulled harder and grunted. I looked everywhere but at him and hoped Savannah wasn't looking. Something sprung loose with a twang.

"Hey, Christine."

"Hey." I was grateful for the distraction. I spun back around. Katie dropped a note on my desk. "Thanks." I glanced back at weirdo-boy behind me. He was pawing through the most disorganized mass backpack clutter I have ever seen in my life. I unfolded Kate's note and read in purple bubble letters her detailed description of her date with Pete last night. I tucked it inside my Algebra book, got out my Civics binder and turned to a fresh blank page. Crovak blustered in a moment later and started his current events bit. He does this thing for the first five minutes of class. Monday through Thursday he gives us news bytes about what's new on my father's am talk radio station and on Friday there's a ten-point quiz on whether you were paying attention Monday through Thursday. It's probably the easiest way to earn points, but since I'm a firm believer that the first five minutes of class should be to get materials ready and greet my classmates, I usually get somewhere between five and seven of those right.

"Here!" It was the harshest, most desperate whisper in the world, and it was so loud that it really didn't have any business being called a whisper.

"What?" My own wasn't much softer. It would be seconds before Crovak would be on my case. I braced myself for the sarcastic political remark. Crovak is devoutly conservative and I am fiercely liberal. His political jabs at me are always good-natured if annoying; once he decided I wasn't one of those sue-happy kids with a lawyer dad he took to tentatively calling me "Commie" which earned me the right to call him "Fascist" without a trip to the office.

That kid shoved a dark-covered paperback book at me. _The Phantom of the Opera_. I rolled my eyes.

"I _told_ you," he said.

"Yay, you," I said with a gesture of mock triumph. "Success!"

He grinned. Oh, how pathetic, I thought. He didn't even notice my sarcasm.

"So, what do you want? A medal?"

"What?"

"I said, 'what do you want a--"

"Christine?"

I bit my lip and turned around uncertainly. Caught again. This time all eyes were on me.

"If you two are finished, perhaps I can begin my heavily biased lecture on the totalitarian regime otherwise known as American democracy?" I felt my face flush. Stupid... whoever he was. Yeah. I didn't even know the kid's name.

Usually I'm pretty good with a witty comeback of the neo-socialist variety, but today I was at a complete loss for syllables, let alone words. I sat up very straight and stared Mr. Crovak directly in the eyes until he decided he wasn't going to get an answer from me and resumed his lecture.

By the end of class, I'd almost forgotten the humiliation of the attention of the whole class called to the fact that I was talking to, well, loser boy. So I was surprised when he poked me with a book.

"_What_ do you _want_?" The humiliation was back in an instant, and it made me mean.

Meanwhile he just held the book up in one hand and the other empty hand made a gesture of dismay. Then he shoved the book unceremoniously at me. I pushed it away. "What? Okay. I see it. It's a book. You win."

I turned away and pulled Kate's note from my Algebra book and scribbled a couple of responses in turquoise between the lines so I could return it to her when the bell rang, which happened an instant later.

I heard the creaking behind me as he got up and gathered his belongings, but I didn't look up. "Kate!" I yelled without lifting my head "Here!" I slammed my binder closed, swept my books into my arms and started out of the room holding the note out at a distance. "I didn't have time to write much. Call me after."

I left quickly before he could say anything more to me.

"Sorry."

I turned.

He lumbered along beside me.

"Like I was saying, it was written in French and translated later and it's what that guy based the musical on. Except he got it all totally wrong. Erik wasn't--"

"Erik who?"

"My point exactly. You didn't even know he had a name."

"Who?"

"Erik. The deformed musical genius."

"The Phantom?"

"He wasn't really a phantom, though."

"He disappears mysteriously at the end."

"No, he doesn't. He just-- Why don't you just read the book?"

I sighed. "Okay. I'll try."

"When?"

"What?"

"I said, when are you going to read it?"

"I don't know. When I have some time to get to the library."

"Christine?"

I whirled around.

"Here," he said.

"Get away." I pushed him and it away.

"You're probably really busy, so it might be a while before you have time to go to the library."

I turned to face him. "What?"

"So you can borrow mine."

"Your what?" I happened to glance down at the book. Yeah. Book. _The Phantom of the Opera_, the title said. By Gaston Leroux. Oh. Well.

"It's okay. I don't need to say I told you so," he said. "Just read it. That's what I really should have bet you. You should read it."

"Fine." I took it and hurried away.

"I don't need it back right away or anything," he called after me.

Whatever. I had to drop by the theatre on the way to pre-calc, and I damn sure wasn't going to risk being late again.

* * *

**Shameless Begging for Reviews: **Sorry for the long wait, folks. I did warn you, though. Reviews are still very much appreciated and looked forward to. I'll try to most more often once we hit summer. Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

**Author's Note:** This is just a little teaser mini-chapter to let readers know that I haven't completely abandoned this story. Life is busier than ever before, but I've got LOADS of new ideas for this too (from work!) so I can't wait to finish it! Except... I have to wait. Because I work. But never fear! Just five more days in my contract and then I'm free from the school for... well... not even three months because I've been robbed... I guess about two months. Gosh, I'm not sure what's so great about my schedule anyway... but nevermind that... just read this.

**Disclaimer:** I have a team of lawyers waiting just in case someone tries to sue me even though I openly admit I don't own POTO.

* * *

That day I just so happened to finish my homework in study hall.

And that night, my little brother happened to mess up something so our DSL connection quit working.

And of course, that would happen to be the same night that my big brother was out on a date, so he wasn't there to fix what Matthew screwed up. "Pickles!" Matthew would have said, but I prefer "Goddammit" like my grandfather says. All one freaking word. And even that wasn't quite strong enough...

I resigned myself to believing that the forces of the universe had all conspired against me for when I complained about the lack of Internet, my father delivered his when-I-was-your-age-we-read-books lecture, which is mostly fabricated since I'm sure he watched TV and played video games as much as the rest of us, even if Internet wasn't used by the public until he was in college or whatever.

I surprised him though. Instead of arguing, I said, "Fine. I _will_ go read a book then!" He didn't look surprised, but I'm sure he was. Although I've always been "bright" (whatever that means) and used to read all the time (in bed, even, with the lights out and a flashlight on under the blankets) all the advanced classes have worn me out and I almost never, ever, _ever_ read just for fun anymore.

As I turned to go my darling brother Matthew called after me "You don't have a book!" (He's a bit too young to remember the time when I loved to read.)

"Do too!" (I am not yet old enough to be too mature to resort to this nonsense).

"Do not!"

By this time I had unzipped my backpack and located the old paperback. I flopped on the couch and opened it, randomly, to some place in the middle.

"You didn't read that much of that book!" Matt taunted.

"Shut up," I retorted.

I was grateful when Dad stepped in and sent Matt to his room. I fixed my eyes on the page and let them slide back and forth, left, right, left, right. There! That'll show everyone! Let them think I'm actually laying here reading!

And as I moved my eyes back and forth across the page, it was, actually, impossible not to read the words. Because they were right there in front of my face, and obviously strung together into sentences, strung together into...

_It was at last time for the rendezvous._ (Between whom, I wondered.) _His face was covered by a white mask trimmed with long thick lace._ (I giggled. Lace?) _He was wearing a clown's white cloak and felt ridiculous. _(What the hell, I thought. The Phantom in a clown's suit? And this was the so-called "much better" original book? I snorted.) _People were going to laugh at him, but at least, he thought, he wouldn't be recognized. _(Laugh at him? How about quake with fear?)

The author rambled for a couple of paragraphs about some artist and then some guy went up a staircase and looked for Christine. It was weird to see my own name in print. I shivered and closed the book. Why was the Phantom wearing lace? Who cared about some artist? What did any of this have to do with opera?

_The book was better. Duh._

No, it wasn't. The book was long winded and off-topic and weird. I reopened it, again to some random page, and laid it upon my chest and closed my eyes. Let Dad, when he walked back through, think I had grown drowsy reading and had fallen asleep.

"Book wore you out already, Chrissy?" Dad asked, passing through.

"I'm just resting my eyes," I shot back.

"Sure sweetheart."

I sat up to respond, but he was gone. I growled in frustration and pretended to read once again.

Someone was in a desperate state, crying, with his or her arms around some lady's neck. _The Voice was gone_ (She lost her voice? Why a capital letter?)_ The Voice was jealous._ (The Voice is a... person?) _Christine was in Raoul's arms._ Oh, the rooftop scene. The one where they sing All I Ask of You. Except they don't. Because it's not a musical, it's a book. I sighed. It wasn't going to make any sense this way. I trudged to my room, threw myself on my stomach on my bed, put the book upon my pillow and opened it again, this time to the beginning. Preface? Nah. I never read those.

But wait. _The Opera ghost really existed._

Seriously? Whoa.

I'm not kidding. It was the first line. "The Opera ghost really existed."

So I read it.

It wasn't like a regular preface, anyway, with all the boring stuff about why the book is being written. I mean, it was, sort of, but it was interesting. And the guy was real? I set off into chapter one filled with surprise and curiosity.

But I was bored again almost at once. The Phantom doesn't make an appearance in this chapter, and neither does Christine or Raoul or any of the other characters anyone knows. Except for Meg Giry, but she's not at all like the Meg from the musical. For one thing, she's annoying and for another, she's mean. So, the chapter starts off with a bunch of ballerinas, including Meg, rushing in to bother some other ballerina named Sorelli, and I wonder if Sorelli is instead of Carlotta because she seems like the stuck-up arrogant bitch type that Carlotta is. That said, the whole chapter is a lot of little girls squealing and saying that the ghost (because for whatever reason they don't call him phantom but ghost) can change his heads from one that looks like a skull to one that is on fire.

I'm not sure who the author thought he was fooling way back in... (I looked at the copyright to be certain) 1911, but no one can change out their heads. Unless you believe in actual ghosts. Which I don't. Which made it awfully hard to accept that it really existed. I mean, sure, I've done that light-as-a-feather-stiff-as-a-board at sleepovers, and I was there when the Sunday school group tried to contact that dead astronaut with a Ouija board at the church retreat, but I've never seen an real honest-to-goodness ghost and I doubt I ever will.

"Suspension of disbelief" Mrs. Conroy would say.

But _still._

How does one suspend one's own disbelief? I shrug my shoulders, turn the page, and try to.

* * *

**Shameless Begging:** I always finish my stories, but I finish them faster, more easily and with far more flair if I'm strongly encouraged with large numbers of reviews. Reviews can be positive or negative. It's not praise that motivates me, but ANY FEEDBACK AT ALL! Would love to hear from you. Please comment.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Gaston Leroux wrote.

Warning: This chapter is just plain weird.

Author's Note: My apologies. It's been summer break for a while, but I still feel like "vacation" hasn't kicked in. This is the first I've had time to write!

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I was in Mrs. Conroy's class using a classroom dictionary to complete a vocabulary assignment when I saw Ryan walk by the open classroom door. He motioned to me to follow him. I got up and went out the door without asking permission. No one questioned me. I laughed out loud. Ryan slipped his hand into mine. My heart skipped at least two beats. I noticed his hand was moist and sticky, but I was so excited to be holding it that I did not react. Just as we rounded the corner by the biology lab I heard a loud thud behind me and glanced back.

Something huge and black was rolling towards us at a rapid pace. It was large enough to fill the hall; it would easily crush us. I screamed and tried to run, but Ryan still held my hand. I tried to pull him along, but he slowed and then stopped. I turned back to look at him. It was not Ryan but a terrifying devil-like creature with hair of fire. I threw all my weight away from it, but it would not let go of my arm. I heard one of those biology-video-narrator voices talking about trapped animals chewing off their own limbs. I knew the high-pitched shrieking sound was myself, but I could not stop. I clawed at my arm. A moment later I fell back. I was free, but the muscle and bone had come off my arm and only the bones remained.

No matter. Dad would take me to the doctor. Modern medicine can fix almost anything. I ran.

I ran faster than I had ever run before. Hurdles sprang up before me and I took them with ease. Suddenly I was on the track and the crowd was cheering. I cleared another hurdle and heard a shout go up. Then another. And another. I won, and the coach was standing ahead of me wearing a robe like courtroom judges wear, and holding my trophy, which was made of marshmallows. I ran past him. I could not stop. After all, the black sphere still rolled behind me. I dared to glance back as I ran out through the visitor's gate. Sphere rolled over Coach. He left a purple stain. Sphere rolled over the crowd. They turned to ash.

I ran harder, through trees then over a bridge. My father's voice sang out "Over the river and through the woods."

"To grandmother's house!" I chimed in. Dad and I used to sing that on the way to Grandma's because you really do have to drive over a river and through some woods to get there.

"The fish aren't biting," my father told me.

"I know, I know. But what would I do with a humdinger anyway?"

"Win a thousand dollars," Dad said. "I'll take it if you don't want it."

The sound of the sphere rolling behind me made a groaning sound like some old-world piece of equipment. It occurred to me not to run home: that would be leading Sphere to Dad!

I turned off my path, panting heavily. I could no longer hear Sphere. I heard only the sounds of my own foot beats. But where would I go? Would I run forever?

There was someone up ahead on the sidewalk, blocking my path. I determined to run through whoever it was. I clenched my fists tighter, tucked my chin and increased my speed. I would hit him head on and the top of my head would pierce right through him making space for the rest of me to pass through. I ran.

He loomed before me now, enormous in that green windbreaker. I recognized him! I saw him at the last second before impact. I hit him bodily and stopped as though I'd hit a brick wall. His arms closed around me. I screeched. I kicked. I tore at the windbreaker with my nails. And then I stopped. I burrowed into the green windbreaker. Someone stroked my hair. Safe, I thought. Safe.

I woke up.

Holy... Fill in the blank. I said it out loud. Followed immediately by a phrase that started with 'What the' and did _not_ end with 'hell.'

The house was silent. Like _dead_ silent. There weren't even those usual house creaks that you're supposed to hear when it's quiet. I shivered and got up to go see why everything was so quiet. As I got up, something moved across my bed. There was a thump on the floor. I jumped back away from the place where it seemed to come from and looked down. Oh. Just a book. I had more or less forgotten that I had been reading at all, let alone what I had been reading. I held it up into a beam of light that streamed through the space in the heavy drapes and shivered at the cloaked figure with a skull-like face rowing a blonde-haired girl in a small boat.

I dropped it and kicked it under the bed. Then I realized that under-the-bed is where I believed monsters lived when I was little, which was not something good to be thinking about in my utterly freaked out state. I picked it up and put it under-the-pillow. I decided that was scarier than under-the-bed and took it out again. I thought about throwing it in the closet and ruled it out for the same reason as under-the-bed. I went to my dresser and put it in my sock drawer. As I did so, I glanced at myself in the mirror and jumped.

Not that I looked any different, mind you, (except that my smudged mascara made huge dark circles of my eyes) but I remembered that book where the girl has the power to see the future if she looks at her reflection by day, but something dreadful will happen if she looks at it by moonlight. I shuddered and turned away. As I did so, I remembered that scene in that movie where the little girl turns away from her own reflection but the reflection doesn't turn. A second later it drags her through the mirror. I moved away from the mirror and leaped back onto the bed without getting my feet within the under-the-bed-monster's reach.

Before I could get back under the covers, though, I imagined what would happen if a hand shot up through the mattress. I'd scream, of course, and Dad would come running. Unless the hand clapped over my mouth, in which case Dad couldn't-

Dad! I had completely forgotten that the Sphere had been after Dad! I tiptoed to his bedroom door and pushed it open.

"Dad?"

I waited.

"Psst! Dad!"

Nothing.

My heart began to pound. What if someone had gotten him?

"Daddy!" No sound, not even his breathing.

I was about to scream when he suddenly made a snoring noise. I jumped. "Jesus!" I burst out involuntarily. "God!"

Silence again.

Then, "Chrissy?"

"Dad!"

"What time is it?"

"I don't know." I squinted at the digital alarm clock on his dresser. "Really late," I said.

"I thought you were Trent."

"Trent? Why?"

There was a rustling sound as Dad threw off the covers. "He'd better be home by now. What time is it?"

"Like, two. Don't worry. He's home," I lied. Or maybe I didn't. He might have been home. Right?

"Go to bed Chrissy."

"Okay." I didn't move out of his doorway. After a few minutes I said, "Can I sleep in here?"

"No, Chrissy."

I lingered.

"Christine," Dad said, finally fully awake, "You're sixteen! You can't sleep in your father's bedroom!"

"I know, but I'm scared," I ventured. Hey, it worked when I have five; I had to give it a shot.

"Scared of what?"

That a giant ball will roll over my family and friends? "Um. Intruders?"

Dad snapped the light on. He appeared before me sitting on the edge of the bed in his white undershirt and gray night-time shorts. "Why?" His voice was quiet and his eyes shifted to the door. "What did you hear?"

I shrugged. "Nothing." Then before he could turn the light off again I said, "I don't know what it was. Just... something."

Dad stuck his hand in his sock drawer. "Go in your room. I'll go downstairs and look around."

"But what if he's in my room?" I whined.

"What if who's in your room?"

"The guy!"

My father crept into my room military-style with his pistol and looked behind the door, inside the closet, and under the bed. "Stay in here. I'll go look around." He moved almost silently down the hall then down the stairs. I strained by ears to listen.

The front door squeaked open.

"Do you know what time it is?" Dad bellowed from the foyer.

"Uh, sorry. I-Jeez, Dad, the gun? What the hell happened?" Trent surely hadn't intended Dad to catch him sneaking in late, let alone holding a pistol.

A brief quiet conversation ensued and then my father stomped up the stairs. My brother treaded leadenly after him.

"Goodnight Chrissy," Dad said. He closed his door before I could respond. Trent shuffled into the bathroom.

I closed my door and stood in the middle of my room uselessly for a few minutes. It was two-thirty. I made my way to my bed and sat down, careful to pull my feet up. I leaned against my pillow and hugged my knees for a moment. Down the hall, the toilet flushed. I twirled my hair around my finger. My brother's bedroom door closed. I nibbled my thumbnail. It was quiet again. I turned out the light and slid under the covers.

I think I managed to stay like that about three minutes.

I snapped the light back on, tiptoed down the hall and pushed Trent's door open.

"Don't you knock?" he said good-naturedly. He already had the PS3 on.

I didn't answer. "You're not going to bed?"

He shook his head and took a swig of Big Red from the bottle on his bedside table. "You?"

"Not tired," I lied.

He shrugged. "Call of Duty?" he offered.

I shook my head. "Nah. Be right back."

I scuttled down the hall to my room to get the book from my sock drawer and ran back as fast as I could. Trent sat at the foot of his bed to better see the screen. I climbed over him to sit yoga-style in the middle of his bed. I spent the night reading about Joseph Buquet's suicide while listened to my brother's machine gun fire.

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Shameless Begging: Please send reviews and encouragement.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** I am so sorry it has been so long!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything by Leroux or Webber

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So, even though nothing was scary by the light of day, I felt a little weird around Ryan after having watched his head burst into flames, even if it had been only a dream. As to the other guy, I avoided him like Death itself and felt queasy whenever I saw him. I mean, what was I supposed to do? He was, like, the weirdest guy ever and for some reason he had decided to try to talk to me pretty regularly and then I had this stupid dream with him in it. And not just in it, but him with his arms around me, comforting me. Eww, I told myself whenever I thought of it. But the thing is, as much as I could say "ew" while I was awake, in the context of the dream, I liked the way it felt when he stroked my hair.

Okay, wrongness! I told myself aloud.

The next three chapters were just weird. I mean, I know they were supposed to be scary, but they just seemed funny to me. Imagine a guy in charge of running the opera who doesn't know a thing about music. I mentioned that aloud on Mom's day off and she rolled her eyes and said that was probably exactly accurate and made a face at Dad who gave her the old tired line about how whenever she got tired of dealing with clerks and jerks and left that wretched place, the rest of the family was ready to make the necessary sacrifices. I gave him a plaintive look; talk about sacrifice didn't sound too good just as I'm starting the early application process for college. Then Mom and Dad had a little discussion about Mom's terrible boss and I slunk off with my book sorry I'd said anything. I guess the content of the book was a little scary, just not in that fun spooky way I'd expected.

It wasn't very romantic, either. Neither Christine nor Raoul showed up in chapters 3, 4, and 5. Neither did the Phantom. I stuck a purple ribbon in the book and ignored it for a while. I mean, I was busy. I don't know if you've ever prepared for a spring musical while taking pre-calc, AP literature, and economics with Edelman, but it's not easy. Add to that my private lessons and all the other crap I just can't seem to say no to, and it's no wonder it happened the way it did. I mean, I've done it before, and I can totally handle it, but it's not _easy_. Everyone just sort of knows to stay out of my way, even Trent and Matthew. Mom's _always _at work anyway, and Dad's easy-going, so I just manage.

Anyway, I was busy as hell, so nothing really happened other than I noticed a couple of things. Like that guy. He might as well have been invisible or dropped out before that for all I noticed him, but once I had his book at my house, it seemed like I saw him everywhere. It's like after Dad bought that Land Rover and the whole family thought it was all so unique and different and then all the sudden we saw them on the highways, on the back roads, in parking lots, everywhere. At first Dad waved at everyone else driving one, but it got old in a couple of weeks. They were everywhere. And it was like that. I got to French class, there he was. I went to civics, he was there, too. He wasn't in pre-calc with me, but I'd see him in the hall by the lockers. At first I thought he was following me, but then I started seeing him even when he didn't see me. At first, I sort of startled every time and worried whether he was going to come and talk to me right out in the open in the hallway, but then I got over it, sort of like Dad not waving at the other Rover drivers anymore. I didn't react, but I saw him _all the time_.

He has a name, obviously, though I can't remember exactly when I learned it. Alex. Not Alexander or Alejandro or anything, I learned later. Just Alex. Like I said I don't remember when exactly I first heard that or when I noticed or cared, but at some point I did so that when I saw him I still panicked, but at least I thought, "Uh oh, it's Alex" instead of something more generally creepy.

In other news Pete broke up with Katie and started going out with this girl Melissa who used to be part of our group of friends until she got onto the varsity cheerleading squad and now she hardly says more than hello. I was assigned to play Christine opposite Mark as Raoul, which was fine because Mark's the nice type of guy everyone would love to have as a brother or a friend. Dad closed a big deal with some high dollar client so there was much celebrating at home, and Mom had a big blow up at work so she missed the celebration. Matt lost a couple of teeth, and life just sort of was normal for a while, except that I was so busy I was missing most of the cool stuff. But somehow, I couldn't manage to 'miss' Alex-_all_ the time.

I remember the first time I noticed him in the cafeteria. I'd just come out of the lunch line with some turkey and gravy stuff that looked only slightly more appetizing than the stuff out of the hamburger and fries line. I had to stop to look around as I came out the door. They were selling dance tickets and needed one of the tables, so the whole cafeteria set up had been shifted all around. My table wasn't in it's usual spot and as a result my friends were all sitting three tables over. It took me forever to spot them, but somehow I spotted Alex right off.

I guess because there was all this empty space around him. I am not exaggerating, he was sitting completely alone with his elbows on the table and his head down with his thin greasy hair hanging down almost to the table on either side. He hunched over his plate and shoveled in the same slop that was on my plate. I looked at my meal and back at him and felt a little sick. And I just stood there, stupidly, staring at him. The empty seats made a perfect circle around him as though I were looking at him through a telescope, and for an instant everything seemed to slow down like an important moment in a movie. The voices around me were more jumbled, less distinct.

Allison grabbed me. "Chrissy, come on. You look so lost." She laughed aloud and pulled me toward the table. My eyes were drawn back to that empty table with one lone-figure in a school-green windbreaker. I sat down and looked back over my shoulder distractedly.

Allison had coincidentally (or perhaps purposefully) manuvered me toward Ryan, and I found myself sitting diagonally from him and across from Ben, who is mostly an ass but awfully funny. I glanced over my shoulder again. Was there someone sitting across from Alex? I thought so. But in an instant I was involved in some inane conversation with my table.

I don't remember what it was about. I couldn't pay attention. That empty table really bothered me. _If I were a nice person,_ I thought, _I would have gone over there and sat down._ That thought bothered me even more, because I did not actually want to go over there and sit down, which led me to the ultimate conclusion: _I am not a nice person._ I moved the turkey mess around on my plate without eating it. I could make valedictorian and if I were not a nice person, Dad would be disappointed. But it wasn't my responsibility, was it? It isn't. And besides, there was someone sitting with him, wasn't there? I glanced over my shoulder again. There had to be. I had to flip my hair back because if fell into my line of sight as I turned. It caught their attention, and I wished I'd gotten a pass to eat in the theatre or something.

"What's going on Chrissy?"

"What's she looking at?"

"Nothing."

"Seriously, man, no one stares at nothing."

"Oh, that freak. Look. She's looking right there. Whatsamatter, Chrissy, you like freaky people all the sudden? Damn, Ryan. I think you've been replaced."

"Don't be stupid, Ben."

"Shut up you guys. Leave her alone. Seriously, Chrissy what are you looking at?"

"Oh shit."

I turned back to see what this last was about. Everyone at the table was staring at me, except Ben, who had maybe gone back to the line for more fries or something.

"Damn," Ryan said and turned away. Allison and Savannah giggled stupidly at a joke I had somehow missed.

"What?" I said.

Now everyone was staring in that direction. I turned to look again.

Ben was at Alex's table.

"What the hell is he doing?"

"Nothing. He'll be right back. Don't let him bother you."

"What the hell? Why's he over there?"

Alex had shoved his tray away and was up and moving toward the door. Ben was standing near the table with his arms out in mock confusion. He was yelling something after Alex. People all around were laughing. I felt embarrassed. I could feel my face turning red.

Ben sauntered back to the table.

"You're such an ass," Allison told him, but she didn't mean it.

As unappetizing as the turkey-mixture on my plate was, it suddenly seemed a better place to look than the faces of my friends. I grabbed a fork and concentrated on moving it from the plate to my mouth to the plate and back again, methodically but not too fast. Thankfully, the bell rang before I finished. I hurried to class without waiting for Savannah.

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**A plea for a review:** Again, I apologize for going so long between posts. I would totally appreciate any encouragement and commentary, and I also want to let everyone know that the NEXT chapter might be up a little faster than I have been able to do previously with this story due to a short vacation. Thanks in advance.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** I wanted to take a brief moment to specifically thank a couple of people. First, I want to specifically thank the four people who have already reviewed chapter 5. Second, I'd like to dedicate this chapter to PHLover who faithfully reviews every chapter and corresponds with me on a regular basis in an encouraging and inspiring manner. To gray seal and wandering child, I am especially glad to see your sympathy for Alex since (as of this point in the story anyway) he's based on a real person. And to Erika, simply thank you. Third, I hereby promise to write every evening for the next three to four days and post as often as possible. I hope to hear from a few of those who have not previously reviewed if at all possible. I'd like to know what you like or what you dislike. And please, don't feel bad to say something you dislike. I know this is wildly different from how I usually write, and I am curious what everyone makes of it. Thanks in advance!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own the school auditorium or Christine's vocal coach. Or a Range Rover.

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For the most part, I was able to forget Alex for short periods of time in between our encounters. I had enough going on without worrying about him, and certainly had enough to keep me busy without trying to read the Gaston Leroux book which, at that point, was someplace out of sight and out of mind.

Have I mentioned yet how stressed I was at that point? I honestly can't say why looking back, but as soon as I got the Christine part, it's like my entire ability to sing just disappeared entirely. I don't mean that the part was too challenging, even though it actually was. I don't mean that I thought I was good and then sang that part and found out I wasn't. No. I mean I was fair to moderate before I knew I had the part, and as soon as we officially started practicing, I got downright bad.

No, it was not all in my head. My vocal coach even mentioned it. Not right off, though I could tell she noticed. Maybe she figured I just had an off day. But after a couple of lessons that went worse than back when I first stared, she asked me what was troubling me and when I acted confused and told her I was fine, she took my mother into a room and spoke with her privately for some time.

Yup. It was true. I sucked. But she told my mother something in private. It must mean there was something serious wrong with me. My mother would schedule an appointment with some doctor or something to determine what was wrong with me, probably. But she didn't and then I had more to worry about. Had Mom forgotten? Was she too busy? Was it so hopeless that there was no point in evening bothering with medical attention?

It made thinking of anything else difficult and concentrating in class almost impossible. I started getting passes to the auditorium during first period when I could and ditching class when I couldn't, so that I could torture myself in private by singing on stage when no one else was there.

Usually I crept into the auditorium, flipped a switch to turn on a single light, stood in the center of the stage, warmed up, sang Think of Me about half way through and then lost my confidence, my train of thought and my memory of the words. Carrying the music with me didn't help a bit because I'd get distracted while I remembered the words, look out over the empty seats, and then not be able to find my place on the page when I looked back at it. Then it would occur to me how stupid I was going to look when it was my turn to perform, and things would get worse. Then I'd sit down and begin rehearsing in my head my I-quit speech to Mr. Akers and Mr. Becavac. I'd get part way through that and begin imagining what their reactions would be and couldn't finish. Usually I ended up sitting cross-legged in the single spot-light and crying into my lap. Stupid, I know, when it would have been so simple to just remind my mother that I was dying or something and ought to be able to get a doctor's note so I wouldn't have to make my quitting speech and watch the looks of disappointment on my teacher's faces. As a matter of fact, maybe they could just hospitalize me right off. That way, I wouldn't have to answer all those why-aren't-you-in-the-musical-anymore-Chrissy questions. I'd even let them put an IV tube in my arm if they'd check me in right away.

And then the light went out. Right then. Right as I was thinking about going to the nurse and telling her that I was really sick and maybe even dying but my parents don't think I know, so can we call them please and tell them that it's okay to tell me, we don't need to wait until after the musical or anything because I don't want to mess it all up for everyone else, so can the ambulance just come get me, please? Yeah. The lights went out. And stupidly, I screamed.

First, I just yelped a little because the light went out all the sudden leaving me in a completely dark theatre. A second later I yelled some actual words but they weren't particularly polite, so I won't say them again here. For those who are especially curious, I'll say that if I remember right it started with "What the" and ending with a word that my mother would slap me in the mouth for if she knew I ever used it. This was uttered at my top volume. When that did not result in the lights coming back on, I tried, "Hey, I'm practicing here!" No response.

And then I swear I heard someone whisper my name.

I couldn't say anything back at first. It came from behind me and to the left and spooked me half to death. _Your mind is playing tricks on you_, I told myself through the pounding of my pulse in my throat. A chill ran down my back while my antiperspirant quit working and my heart became audible. But I heard it again, spoken softly behind me. "What?" I somehow managed to whisper back. Having answered, I got more, not less frightened. I realized that I couldn't see the edge of the stage and I couldn't see the steps. If I got up and tried to run, I could blunder directly into the orchestra pit. If I ran towards backstage I got further from the place where I could turn the lights back on and would have to run through the curtain, behind which someone might be standing to grab me.

But who could possibly be there? It had to be a stupid drama prank, after all. We were putting on Phantom, for crying out loud. Of course someone had to put up the lights and call out, "Christine, Christine." Dumbasses.

"Okay, that's real flipping mature," I yelled into the darkness. "Someone could get hurt. That'd be real freaking funny, wouldn't it?"

No response.

Assholes. Probably just turned off the lights and ran without sticking around to see what happened. I stood and moved back. Then I remembered that they hadn't run—they had hung around and whispered my name.

"Who's there?" I yelled again.

No response.

I wasn't scared anymore but pissed. I turned and stomped past where the curtain should be and into the wings to grope around on the wall for a light switch. After accidentally lowering the projection screen and putting it back up, I finally found a switch that turned on the overhead florescent lights that you see in the rest of the school. It was enough to get back to where I'd left my books and find my way out the door.

I stomped halfway to the band hall to tell when I remembered that I wasn't officially in the auditorium at all. And then I was stuck. I couldn't report to first period this late without a pass, but if I hung around in the hall I'd surely be caught skipping. I slipped into a practice room and sat on the floor where I wouldn't be noticed and felt like an idiot until the bell released me to go suffer through second period.

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**A desperate plea for reviews****:** Hey folks. I know I've been a very bad writer and have not posted enough to deserve lots of reviews, so I promise to try harder in the future. I'm on a short three-day vacation and should be able to write each evening while the rest of my family watches TV, so please consider posting a review and I will do my absolute best to get another chapter out to you today or tomorrow.


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: As promised, it's vacation week, so I'm posting more often than previously. I don't know how long I can keep up the posting frenzy, so after Thursday we might have to drop down to once a week or even less. But for now, enjoy it while it lasts. I'm also thinking of posting two other things in the near future: 1) a very short little thing about Erik's mental condition (multiple posts, but each post probably roughly drabble-length) and 2) something really ridiculous about the night I spent with Erik. Yeah. I was a little psychotic I suppose, but you may find it entertaining, perhaps. Finally, one of the reviews led PHLover and me to start talking about some other ideas, so there may be a collaborative effort posted soon on her account, and I hope that everyone reading this will go over and check it out because it promises to be hysterical, too.

Disclaimer: I... own this really cool laptop I'm typing on, but not Phantom of the Opera. (Maybe I can arrange a trade...!)

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So, like I said, I couldn't avoid stupid Alex to save my tiresome, overworked, stressed-out, poorly-singing life. Which I suppose is why I ran into him right outside the auditorium in the band locker area. I only saw him from the back, but I recognized him right away. For one thing, he was wearing that ever-present school-green windbreaker. Secondly, he's really the only guy of that size around. And even if he wasn't, he's very distinctive, even from the back. His hair is black and long and straight, and as much as that might sound cool to folks who like a certain type of guy, it wasn't, maybe because his hair was so sparse. Sparse. Yeah. I remember it because even though that's a word that everyone should have known by middle school, it came up in a vocabulary lesson where we had to draw pictures to illustrate words and I remember thinking that if it wouldn't look like I was being deliberately mean, Alex's hair would have been the perfect device for illustrating the word "sparse." It was _very_ thin, in every sense, and there seemed to be places where patches were just _missing_. I mean, you didn't see bald skin or anything because the rest of his hair was long, but you could just tell.

So like I said, you can always recognize Alex right off, even from the back, because if the windbreaker didn't give him away, the long patchy hair totally did. He was crouched down and bent over presenting a still more unflattering than usual picture of him.

Now, I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but I was still pissed about the jerk who turned out the lights on me in the auditorium, and I took one look at Alex bumbling around in his disorganized locker and I knew, I just _knew_ it had to be him. I debated whether to just walk up and go off on him for at least fifteen seconds. I had just made up my mind to let him have it when out of nowhere I lost the nerve. I decided it would be better to go and turn him in at the office, but of course, I couldn't because I could not admit that I had been in the auditorium because I didn't have a signed pass. Someone would check with my first period teacher and it'd come out that I was skipping and then I'd have to have a good story for Mom and Dad.

I decided the only option was to wait until the next time I had a real pass to go to the auditorium and turn him in then. Of course, that wouldn't exactly work either, because they'd check with his first period teacher, and since it wouldn't be the same day on which he'd actually done it, he'd have an alibi. I'd look like an idiot and he'd not only get away with it, I'd probably have to give him an apology for accusing him. I thought of telling Ryan and Ben and decided in about two seconds that would easily go too far and get way out of hand. And would probably get me in trouble for instigating whatever happened between them. I considered again just confronting him and couldn't decide what to say.

It wasn't until English that I remembered I had his that book. I decided to bring it back to school the next day, hand it back to him and tell him that I hadn't finished it but that I didn't want anything more to do with him if he was going to play such dangerous pranks. Of course, he'd probably just deny it and I'd be right a back where I was when I considered confronting him and didn't know what to say. By the end of class I was more frustrated and angry than I had been that morning. It was time to go to theatre and now I was in a truly rotten mood. I dropped everything in my locker, slammed it shut, whirled around and damn-near ran into him. Yes. Him. Alex. Ugh!

"Get—out of my way!" was all I could manage to say. It felt mean as hell the second after I said it, but I was too mad to take it back.

I seethed all through theatre. Seethed. That'd be a great word to illustrate, too. I'd draw myself, red-faced with gritted teeth and hot-anger lines shooting out of the top of my head.

I would like to say, at this point, that there is nothing cute or fun or romantic about being stalked. By anyone. Yes, granted, this was Alex and that compounded the problem, but even the hottest guy in the world becomes a complete creeper when he follows you around instead of just asking you out. Not that it's ever happened to me before, no. But you hear about it plenty, and it's just creepy. There's no other word for it. Like Romeo. My whole stupid honors English I class thought that Romeo and Juliet was so romantic; it annoyed me to no end. I think Miss Kelly was pretty thrilled that I pointed it out, but honestly, how could everyone else miss it? At the beginning of the play he's moping around about how he loves this other girl so much, so his friends take him to a party to meet other girls to make him feel better and there he sees her for the first time ever and says he loves her before he even talks to her. Hello? Love? Or just plain insanity. So he climbs over the wall to her dad's place and sits beneath her window watching her and talking to himself about her. If that's not stalker-like I don't know what is. I threw my hand in the air and then told Miss Kelly, "Oh my God, he is such a player!" without even waiting for to call on me. Standing beneath her window saying things like "Cast it off!" It's about as plain as day what he wanted her to cast off, I think, and it's been a bit of a theatre joke ever since.

He'd never even heard her speak a word and there he pressing his hand against hers and begging her to let lips do what hands do! Blushing pilgrims, holy palmers, whatever! What a _line!_ I will never fall for such a stupid line, I vowed aloud. Meanwhile, Brian Hunter immediately began updating the lines for modern use and copying them all into his notebook. Guys. Honestly. Most of them are jerks.

Not that Juliet wasn't asking for it, too with all that bit about getting his sin all over her lips and he'd better kiss her again to take it back and such. Can you believe this is what they _require_ us to read while they're also giving us all this crap about healthy relationships, boundaries, saying no and respecting our bodies?

But you know what? Most of them never got it. When they were both dead at the end, a bunch of girls cried and said how romantic it was and how they thought their boyfriends should love them so much that they would want to die if they couldn't be together. And then the guidance counselors wonder why every time some couple breaks up people talk about suicide. It's not like you'd have to be particularly creative to come up with such a thought.

It's true, though. Most of what we read in class the characters do all sorts of things that are illegal or just plain bad. As a matter of fact, if a student wrote the same type of stuff, we'd get referred for counseling just for thinking of it. Yeah. The only place stricter than a school about what you can't say is the airport. You can get referred for counseling for saying the slightest little thing. And yet, when something really bad is happening right under their noses, they don't even notice, not with as much warning as they had this time.

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**Shameless Review begging:** When I'm in writing mode, I write almost constantly. The next chapter is already almost done, so the faster I get comments on this part, the faster I'm likely to put up the next part. Ready? GO!


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Okay. Here it is. I'm sorry I'm late!

**Second Author's Note:** When you finish reading this, please go and check out "Leroux Was Wrong" posted by PHLover213. We're collaborating and it promises to be quite amusing. For those of you who liked my Real Don Juan Triumphant, this is yet another comedic piece with the Persian as the narrator. Not the same version of the Persian, mind you, and not quite the same twist on the story. PHL's got some hysterical ideas, so please go check it out. It promises to be quite entertaining.

**Disclaimer:** It's not really worth suing me anyway...!

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I got to school late. God knows I shouldn't have because I was up early as hell, but somehow I made myself late. I knew that when I heard the school bus going by outside. It didn't matter exactly about the bus because I had a spring driving pass for theatre practice, but our house is one of the last stops on the bus route. If I don't leave within about five minutes of "my" bus going by, I get stuck behind another bus, one of the early buses for the middle school, and since you can't pass those things when they stop, it adds some fifteen to twenty minutes to my trip. There are ways around that, but there are generally buses on those routes, too. There's only one entrance to the school and there's always lots of traffic, so I knew when I heard the roar of the diesel engine outside while I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth that it was all over and I would just have to be tardy. I considered skipping the entire day, to be honest. It's far easier to pretend to have been sick and write yourself a note that to deal with going to the tardy line at the attendance office and getting a slip and a lecture (the slip is easy. It's the lecture I can't stand. And each of us gets our own private little lecture which makes the line take even longer making us later and later to class as we wait. What does that say about the school's priorities?) and then going to class and maybe getting the same lecture again? I wondered if I could get the lecture in French. That would at least make it a little different than the attendance office version, and at least half the class wouldn't really understand everything she had to say to me, I bet, because they aren't the same words we learn in class. Of course, I probably wouldn't understand most of the lecture either, which I was thinking would be a bit of a bonus over having to listen and pay attention if it were given in English as it would be in any class other than French class.

Ugh. French class. _Alex_ would be there. My anger at him for turning off the lights on me the day before resurfaced and I decided I did not want to go at all.

But I had skipped it yesterday. Two days in a row and my grade would probably be impacted. And if I skipped the whole day and pretended to be sick, I'd be found out when I reported to musical practice after school. And if I skipped that too, it would look really bad. I mean, I was already performing poorly. I would surely be berated if I let my attendance become poor as well. I re-structured my quitting speech to Akers and Becavac. _I really want to be in the musical, but I don't feel I'm going to benefit the school. I've been feeling ill a lot lately, and it's hurting my attendance both during and after classes. On top of that, something's happened to my voice. I don't want to ruin the production. Couldn't I perhaps work tech for this show or something? Or sit out entirely?_ It might work. But I'd have to at least report in order to deliver it, which meant no ditching school today, especially since I was already here, had already checked in with attendance. Skipping now was out of the question.

I had been filled with dread as I drove to school thinking about it, but now that I had a tardy slip in hand and was headed toward the language hall, I felt positively sick to my stomach. I rationalized that if I threw up they'd declare me sick and send me home and I wouldn't have to worry about how to get out of things. Unfortunately, I had skipped breakfast and so there wasn't much chance of that happening.

The feeling got worse the closer I got to French class. Since I attributed it to the anticipating of running into Alex, I took my tardy admit slip and made a detour to the counseling office.

It really was the right place to go, though, when you think about it. I was having a problem. It was a serious enough problem that I was worrying myself sick about it. It was starting to interfere with my school work. It involved another student at Harrison. It was likely within their power to do something about it like change my schedule so I'd never have to see him again, or call him in and tell him to leave me alone or something. I praised myself the whole way there telling myself how I was doing the right thing and my counselor would be thrilled that someone was actually listening during one of those boring guidance lectures.

But when I got there, Ms. Harmon's closed door and a mass of crumpled blue slips of paper in the plastic mailbox outside her door indicated that I was _not _the first kid to stop by. I pressed my nose against the glass of her door. The lights seemed to be out in there.

I sighed heavily. That left a couple of options like waiting for her to get there or talking to Mr. Miller. I didn't mind waiting all period, anyway, which would keep me out of French. But I'd need to at least take a pass to Madame Welsh to show where I was going to be, and the secretary for the counseling office wasn't there. If Harmon wasn't there, then Miller would likely tell me to leave a blue slip and go to class to wait, which meant if I wanted out of French this morning, I'd have to talk to _him_.

The idea was not a particularly appealing one. How he ever became a counselor was beyond my wildest imagination, but judging by his age, it was long enough ago that the standards were probably completely different back then. He'd no doubt been grandfathered in, and 'grandfathered' was a great word considering he was probably older than mine. Great-grandfathered in. Ugh.

Still, it beat going to French class and making myself sick for the remainder of the period debating over whether to confront Alex about the light trick the day before.

I went to Miller's door and tapped lightly.

No response, but there a sound inside as though someone had shifted, looked up, maybe considered opening the door but changed his mind.

So like Miller to shut his door rather than have to actually work with the kids he's assigned to. I rolled my eyes, turned the knob, knocked again and simultaneously opened the door a crack.

"Mr. Miller?" I said into the crack. "I'm sorry to bother you but it's really impor-"

I froze. Mr. Miller was NOT behind his desk. But the room was not empty. _He_ was there. He was hunched in the student chair between the door and Mr. Miller's desk like a hairy mountain. He did not look up at me.

_Damn. _I pulled the door shut, whirled around and left. Indeed, Alex was everywhere. Even when he wasn't following me or messing with me, I couldn't avoid him. It occurred to me that after this morning's little encounter, it would probably look like _I_ was following _him_, and I wondered if he had noticed it was me.

Wouldn't _that_ be creepy if to avoid getting in trouble for stalking me he reported that I was following him around? Then no one would believe me! I soothed myself with the idea that someone like me following someone like him around would sound utterly ridiculous for all of about three seconds until I remembered that I'd been sitting with Ben and repeatedly staring at Alex yesterday when Ben said whatever he'd said to him.

I dropped my pass on Madame Welsh's desk and settled in to watch some black and white movie in French. At least I hadn't missed anything important. And at least I could get through French without Alex's eyes boring a hole in my back all period.

As a matter of fact, I didn't see him all day. Not in Civics, not at lunch, not in the halls.

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**Shameless Begging:** You know what to do. Please drop a comment in the little comment box. Your efforts will be greatly appreciate and rewarded with another speedy chapter.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Okay, guys, the bad news is I go back to my regular job on Thursday August 12, which means as of that date I work TWO jobs, not just one. The GOOD news is that I've already written chapters 10, 11, and 12. And some bits and pieces past that. So my new plan is to post as often as possible, but not less than once a week unless something crazy happens. I also have to warn you that there's a pretty good chance that something crazy is about to happen within the next 30 days to 90 days. It could take longer, up to perhaps six months. We're moving. I don't know when or anything because the deal hasn't closed and the house has to be built. But within the next 30 days I may have to start paying on both properties, which means I'm going to have to work my butt off at the second job in order to afford it, so when that happens, this story may go on hold again. But I'll TRY not to let that happen.

**Disclaimer****:** I am entirely out of creative disclaimers and am accepting suggestions for clever witty sayings more entertaining than simply, "I don't own it, please don't sue." New ideas welcome. Thanks in advance.

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When school let out I told Becavac I'd be late because I had to go to counseling and I made my way back to Ms. Harmon's office one last time to try again. Her door was closed. I slumped into a chair and I poked the toe of my shoe into an indentation in the carpet as I considered whether to stay or go.

Ms. Harmon bustled out of her office, closing the door behind her. I jumped up and she nearly ran into me.

"Oh, sorry, Chrissy. Are you here to see me? Is it about Seton Hall? Can we meet later? I'm just late for a meeting."

"No, it's not about..." But she was gone already. "It's not about Seton Hall," I said aloud to no one in the direction of her retreating back. I sighed and slumped back into a chair.

Then I threw caution to the wind and figured what the hell. Sure, talking to Miller was going to be a waste of time, but as long as it was my time, I might as well waste it in a way that I could at least tell my mother I'd done everything I could. I could hear myself already when I got around to telling her there was a problem. _We should call the police or something, _I'd tell her. And when she protested I could say _I went to the school counselor and it didn't help!_

That would work, actually. So why not? I went to the Old Man's door and repeated my actions from the morning.

The rest of the sequence was a repeat as well.

Yes. I kid you not. He was there again.

I backed away, same as the morning, pulling the door back with me as a went as though it were a shield to protect me from him, same as morning.

But _this_ time when only a crack of space remained, he glanced up. Our eyes met briefly through the open space. I wanted to slam the door closed again and run off, but there was an obvious look of recognition on his face; he saw enough of my face to know it was me.

But that wasn't all.

I knew what I had seen. In the brief instant I had seem a portion of his face through the curtain of his hair, I had seen the streaks that always, _always_ mean tears.

Something in the pit of my stomach did a weird flip. I stood stupidly in the doorway, probably with my mouth open.

"Oh," I managed to squeak, after what seemed like an eternity. "I..."

_Talk_, Christine. Just. _Talk_.

But I couldn't for another second. I felt like a rope was being pulled through me, straight through my breastbone. Putting my hands over the place did nothing to make the feeling go away.

"I... didn't know..." I was out of breath. "You... were here," I finally managed to feebly whisper.

He hadn't moved. Hadn't so much as acknowledged me. My heart thudded audibly. But he didn't look dangerous or anything slumped in that chair, anyway. He didn't look anything but unbelievably sad.

"Sorry," I forced out.

I turned and walked away as quickly as I could, but I got only a few paces before I stopped and shivered. Why would I ever consider going back...? My feet moved me back to the door. I felt sad. I didn't have time to think about it then, but I thought about it after. I felt profoundly depressed having only _looked_ at him.

I stood in my place outside the door and put my hand upon the knob once again.

And then I opened the door. Just a crack like before. I peered in. "Hey," I said.

"Go away," he told me without looking. Not meanly. Not even sadly or tiredly. Just... flatly.

It was my cue. Permission. An excuse to run. _Go away..._ But I did not. I _stayed._

I pushed the door open a little further. "You sure?"

"I don't care. Stay. Go. Whatever. Just..." He put his hands in his hair and moaned a frustrated sound.

I forced myself to talk. "I uh... I just wanted to see Mr. Miller. I can come back another time, though. I mean, you were obviously here first." No response. I couldn't think of anything at all to say, so I sat there uncomfortably for a minute. Then I thought of something. "I uh... read the first six chapters of your book." No response. "It's uh... I can um..." I was going to say return it, but I didn't get the chance to. I was trying to figure out a way to suggest that maybe he had been looking for me to get it back so if I gave it back, you know, that he could stop following me, without saying it all rudely like that. But I couldn't figure out how to put it so I kept stopping and starting and not getting anywhere.

He wiped his eyes and his nose on his windbreaker.

"I guess Mr. Miller isn't coming back," he said. He stood and blundered past me. "No use waiting around all day for him."

"Yeah, no use," I said, glancing after him. He was gone. I actually wondered at how someone that size could disappear so fast. Then I realized that after avoiding him all day I had just purposely subjected myself to sitting in the same room with him. Well, not purposely, exactly. Not sitting exactly either. A mixture of relief and dread washed over me.

I turned to go.

And just then Mr. Miller arrived.

"Oh, Christine!" he said. "I didn't know you were here. Was that Alex who just left? Was he looking for me?" The Old Man hesitated in the doorway and glanced down the hall, probably at Alex who hadn't disappeared after all, but only gone out of the counseling office faster than I expected. "Well, what can I do for you?"

Damn. Why was I here again? To complain that I was being stalked? It seemed so silly now, to claim that I was afraid the guy who had just left was dangerous. There wasn't really anything dangerous about him, was there? I could still report what happened yesterday and mention that I thought it was him. It was a safety concern, after all, wasn't it? Or maybe I should talk to the Old Man about what happened in the cafeteria with Ben. Except I wasn't sure what did happen. I had a problem, didn't I? There was the fact that I couldn't handle theatre anymore, but I didn't see how Miller could possibly help with that, so I didn't mention it.

"Yeah, Alex was looking for you," I said to stall for time until I could figure out what else to tell him. "He was pretty upset. I think he was crying." Why was I telling him that? "He didn't say why or anything." For a second I was irritated with myself for feeling sorry for him, and that was all it took to renew my anger at him. "Actually, as a matter of fact, I was I was here about Alex in the first place," I said.

"Oh really?" He looked surprised. "Oh. Well, do you... do you want to go and get him?"

I shook my head hard.

But what could I say? _I think he's stalking me_ wouldn't make much sense after _he's upset and crying,_ would it? But he did turn out the lights on me. It seemed so petty all the sudden.

"I just wanted to tell you... Tell him what? _That he's creepy and the way he looks at me freaks me out?_ What would he say to that? Would he reprimand Alex or tell me to be nicer? _That he follows me around and I think he's dangerous?_ Would Mr. Miller even believe it? And if he did, what could he do? Call the police? I imagined my father shaking his head. That poor boy, Christine, he'd say. He didn't have any friends... Would he say that? Or would he say Oh honey, why didn't you tell someone sooner? To be honest, I had absolutely no idea what either of my parents would actually say in this situation. As a matter of fact, I wasn't entirely sure what the situation even was.

"I just wanted to tell you that Alex-"

Mr. Miller was staring at me through those old-man glasses and waiting for me to finish.

"...that Alex doesn't seem to have any friends." Silence. Mr. Miller waited as if I was supposed to say more. Thinking back, I guess what I said wasn't any great revelation. "And I think... I think that maybe you should do something about that."

Mr. Miller stared at me another moment before his mouth started to work. He picked up his pen, held it as though to write and set it back down again. He moved some papers around on his desk and I noticed that his hands shook slightly. How old _was_ he, I wondered.

"Christine," he finally managed to say, "Christine, what exactly is it you think that I could do?"

I didn't have an answer to that. _He_ was the guidance counselor. _He_ was supposed to know what he could do. _I _wasn't supposed to know. That's why he was the counselor. _Right?_

"Didn't Miss Briggs go into your classroom during elementary school?"

I nodded.

"Do you remember Warm Fuzzies? And IALAC signs?"

I did. Warm Fuzzies were cotton balls with glued on eyes and Miss Briggs came in and gave one to each student in third grade. She didn't just put it in your hand, either, but she tucked it behind your ear or put it in your shirt pocket or stuck it between your glasses and the side of your head or whatever, and as she gave it to you, she gave you a compliment. That's what Warm Fuzzies really were-compliments. We were supposed to remember to give them to each other after that and not to give Cold Pricklies-insults.

IALAC is an imaginary sign we wear around our necks. The letters mean "I am lovable and capable" and every time someone says something to hurt you, it tears a little piece of your sign off, but you get a new one to start over with every morning. I only remember it because there was this cheesy cartoon with a kid with an actual sign around his neck and everyone made fun of him and tore up his sign, but when he woke up the next day, he felt lovable and capable again because every day is a new day.

As I sat there in Mr. Miller's office that afternoon, I wondered how many days in a row that could happen before you woke up _without_ a new sign. What plans did Miss Briggs have for kids who _lost_ their signs? Because truth is, the IALAC lesson didn't help; we actually _joked_ about it for weeks afterward. We made torn-up IALAC signs to pin to each other instead of the "Kick Me" signs you see on TV.

Mr. Miller had continued without waiting for me to respond, and I missed everything he said.

"Do you understand, Christine?" he asked.

"Yeah, I guess so," I lied.

"Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

"No," I said. I'd gotten awfully good at lying in the last few seconds, apparently. Mr. Miller believed me and suggested I'd better head home unless I had practice after school. I lied again and said I didn't.

I left. But I didn't go home.

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**Shameless Begging:** I have gotten so much feedback lately and I am on Cloud 9! It's amazing how much reviews do for a person's mood, isn't it?


	10. Chapter 10

Author's Note: Back to work tomorrow! Oh no!

And for the record, I don't think Alex was in the counseling office ALL DAY. I think that was mostly just an expression when he said "No sense waiting all day" and left. I think Mr. Miller sent him "back to class" and Alex went... well... who knows where but obviously NOT class, and then came back again later, very distressed, again because of who knows why. But Alex doesn't appear in this chapter, so you'll just have to wonder what he's up to while...

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I walked down the hill past the stadium then behind the old post office and across the street to the Dairy Barn. I saw some people I knew inside ordering sundaes. I didn't wave and neither did they. They weren't part of the theatre crowd, who were mostly back at the school still practicing. I wasn't part of their crowd, which, from the jackets they wore, was some sport or another.

When they were out of view, I slowed down and walked slowly down the road, kicking pebbles as I went. I followed the road for a couple of blocks then turned off on a dirt path that led down to a drainage ditch I decided to pretend was a river. When I happened across a large rock I sat down on it and stayed there a long time staring at the water.

Without thinking much about it, I pulled that book out of my backpack and found the place with the purple ribbon.

I wasn't sure what to believe after chapter 6. I know the Angel of Music is not the Angel of Music but the Phantom from the musical, so I did not fall for Christine's story so easily, but I could also see that in this order it made it so much easier to understand how Christine fell for it. The cemetery scene is before she ever meets the Phantom face to face. And of course the horror that Raoul saw that night had to have been the very same Phantom. I tried to imagine what I might suspect at this point in the book if I didn't know exactly where it was going, but I could not. I went on anyway. Chapter 7 was short as hell and mostly funny. Chapter 8 was extra long, obviously to make up for how short chapter 7 was.

The sun went down and the air got colder.

I held the book up and struggled to make out the words.

Some kids in dark clothes came up from below, laughing as they went. They kept close to each other. There were five of them. I recognized them all. They were Harrison students, too, but not part of my group of friends. From the looks on their faces and the reputations they had at school, I figured they probably had been down below smoking pot or messing around or both. They passed me without a word. The tallest guy glanced at me and nodded. The rest acted like I didn't exist. It didn't bother me a bit.

My cell phone rang, and I jumped.

_Dad._

"Hey Daddy, what's up?" I answered.

He said my name. He did not sound pleased.

I struggled to see my watch in the darkness. Whoops.

"Hey, Dad, we got done early so I walked over to the Dairy Barn. Yeah. Can you meet me here?"

His tone softened slightly and he agreed. I stuffed that book back into my backpack and ran to the Dairy Barn as fast as I could.

I cut across the yard and darted through the building and out the door into the parking lot. Dad was waiting in the Rover. I hoped he hadn't seen me cutting through the field. I jumped in, panting heavily. Dad pretended not to notice.

I heated up leftovers in the microwave and took my plate to my room. Mom was at work and the boys had eaten with Dad while I was at rehearsal. _Rehearsal._ I shivered. I'm not one of those kids who lies to my parents.

Or, I wasn't. Until now.

I closed myself in my room and read the rest of chapter 8 and all of chapter 9, which was another short one. It flowed like the musical, I thought. Box five, Carlotta, the croaking, the chandelier; it was all exactly as I knew it. It was time for the masquerade without an intermission or any long period of time passing. It occurred to me I should go back and calculate the dates, but this wasn't for class, so who cared. I decided that it made far more sense that Christine fell for the Phantom's tricks in the book due to everything being in a different order, but other than that, it wasn't particularly different.

And I was exhausted.

So I put the purple ribbon back in the book, stuck it under my pillow and went to sleep.

I dreamed a crazy masquerade prom where a number of very bad things happened and I found myself in the basement of the school trying to persuade Ryan of something very important.

I woke up in a panic and realized that I had been ignoring Ryan, which was a Very Bad Thing all by itself since almost immediately after the spring musical would be Prom, which I needed to start shopping for a dress for almost immediately. It would certainly be helpful if Ryan would ask me already, but since we weren't together, it wasn't that simple. On the other hand, he didn't have a girlfriend just at that moment either, so there was certainly hope. But lots of girls would have been pleased to go with Ryan, and I was only one of many, which meant I'd need to make a substantial effort if I was at all serious about it.

I snapped on my light and made myself a numbered list: 1) talk to mom about a dress budget 2) go dress shopping 3) you know what. That third was obvious enough to me but probably not to anyone else, except maybe Savannah. It meant do anything and everything possible to get Ryan's attention and to keep it up until he actually asked.

I turned out the light and got back into bed still nervous about upcoming events but with a sense of purpose. Purple, I thought. The dress should be purple.

In the morning I felt refreshed, invigorated and energized. Then I looked at the clock and realized I was late again. I stomped through the house cursing under my breath and ran out without putting on make up or saying goodbye to the family. I got my foundation and lipstick on in the car with the rearview mirror, a trick that I learned watching my mother. I did my eyes in class during the morning announcements. I pretended to take notes while I actually recalled Ryan's schedule and jotted it down inside my notebook. I chewed the eraser on my pencil while I plotted a route to class that would ensure we met and chastised myself internally for deviating from the routes I usually followed. In my efforts to avoid Alex, I'd missed seeing Ryan in the halls as well.

I noticed Alex on the far side of the room with his elbows on his desk and his head bent so his hair made a curtain on either side of his book. I felt bad for him instantly.

I reminded myself that I had to focus on Ryan right now or Prom wouldn't be what I expected it to be. I wrote Ryan's name on a page of my notebook and traced over it three times before my eyes were drawn back to Alex.

I tore them back and refused to look again.

I had my stuff packed to go before the bell rang. When it sounded, I stood up and bolted for the door. My purse strap caught on my chair and held me back, and when I turned to detach it, my binder slipped to the floor.

The majority of the class left before I managed to gather my things.

As I crouched on the floor I had the dreaded thought that Alex would decide to play chivalrous and come pick everything up for me, which would be mortifying, really. I glanced up and confirmed his location on the other side of the room. He's always slow to collect his belongings. Strange, he wasn't slow-moving the day before as he left Miller's office, though. I hurried toward the door and somehow managed to reach it _right_ when he did.

"Hey, Christine."

I barely nodded at him. What could I say? I glanced around to see who might be looking started into the hallway.

"Sorry for yesterday," he offered, sticking close by.

I shrugged. "My fault." I looked up and down the hall. All my friends were gone. Alex was hovering. He seemed to be waiting for more. "Stupid," I said looking around again. At least no one was staring at us. "Opening a closed door. All my fault." I turned and hurried down the hall in the direction I hoped I might encounter Ryan. The hall was crowded and I slipped between people, walking quickly. I left Alex behind. Though he was surely fast enough, he couldn't possibly maneuver through the small spaces between the crowd passing the other direction, he was soon far behind me.

Ahead of me was Ryan.

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Encouragement to review: You know the drill!


	11. Chapter 11

I know it's been a while, guys. I'm very, very sorry. I dealt with bullies and bully victims all afternoon today, so this story was on my mind on the drive home. Here's the next chapter. I'll try not to make you wait so long next time.

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Oh my God. He almost kissed me. He almost _kissed_ me. _He_ almost kissed _me_!

I didn't even see it coming or I could have reacted better. I was in the junior lockers just thinking that I'd lost him when he came up behind me and scared me half to death by putting his hands on my shoulders and saying my name in my ear. I jumped and whirled around. Had he been _following_ me? Had _he_ been following _me_? Seriously?

"Hi," I managed to say after a long slow breath. I read that in some magazine once-to take a long slow breath before speaking; it keeps your voice from coming out all squeaky. Instead, it sounded all breathy and winded. "Hi." It was almost seductive, wasn't it?

He grinned. "Hey," he said back, putting his arm up against the locker, forming a protective barrier around me.

My skin tingled.

Half-laughing: "Have you been avoiding me? I haven't seen you around much."

Giggle. "No!" Another slow deep breath. That 'no' _had_ been squeaky. "No, of course not." (Much better.) "I've... I guess I've just been busy." I tipped my head so my bangs fell across my eyes a little further. "I'm really sorry." I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear as if it had fallen in my eyes accidentally and laughed as though what I was about to say was a joke. "Why, did you miss me?"

He smiled. That wide, toothy grin. Half a laugh. His eyes flitted to the side briefly, and then his face turned serious. "Yeah, you know," he ran his hand-the one that wasn't attached to the arm still making a barrier around me-over his hair. "Maybe I did. I think maybe I actually did." He nodded slightly and came closer.

I could smell him. He smelled warm and natural, not a strong cologne scent, not a nasty after athletic period odor, not even deodorant, just faint odor I couldn't place that was pleasing and made me want to curl into his chest and close my eyes.

I could feel him, closer still. Our bodies brushed against one another briefly. I must have closed my eyes. I felt his hand on my chin, and I lifted it. My eyes opened, apparently instinctively. He was mere inches away, slightly above me as I gazed up at him.

"I did miss you, Christine," he murmured. "Don't go away again."

"I won't." I should have said something better, shouldn't I? But I couldn't think of anything better. I couldn't think of anything at all. I could feel my pulse in my throat. My lips parted.

"Let's go! Clear the halls!"

The world around me came sharply into focus again as the moment shattered and I could hear the standard school noises all around. Where had all those people come from suddenly. A moment ago I could have sworn we were the only people in the locker hall.

"Ryan Johnson!" Ryan turned from me and lowered his arm from the locker.

I let my head swivel away from Ryan's face to land upon Mr. Smith's. Ryan was already moving away from me.

"Move along. Get to class." Standard chant used by the administration to clear the locker banks, but today it really bugged me.

"Catch ya later, Chris," Ryan said with a winning smile.

I glanced over my shoulder at Smith. He was looking at his watch. "Thirty seconds!" he yelled to me and anyone else remaining in the hall. When I turned back Ryan had disappeared. I sprinted down the hall to class. I didn't make it before the bell and there were consequences, consequences, consequences.

The logical consequence for a tardy is after school detention. My school is big on "logical and natural consequences" with a focus more on the "logical" than natural. The natural consequence of being late, of course, is that you miss some work and maybe you fall a tiny bit behind. But it's easy to get the notes, and most teachers don't say anything important in the first two minutes of class anyway, so a natural consequence isn't good enough in that situation. You need a logical (but unnatural) consequence. So, for being late, and therefore wasting a bit of the school's time, the school gets to keep you late and waste a bunch of your time. It's never proportionate, unless you multiply by 30. I mean, I was probably, literally two minutes late. So I served an hour of detention.

Whatever.

I didn't complain.

I didn't complain a bit because it made me a whole hour late to theatre, which is what I've been trying to avoid since, oh, since I got the part. Becavac was pissed and Sheila, my own personal Carlotta, a greater torment than usual. But people mad at me is far better than people aware that I completely suck, right?

We went over blocking, then I sat with Mark and debated whether to tell him that I needed to quit or not. I never worked up the nerve, and next thing I knew, it was time to go.

After so-called rehearsal it was home again. Instant Noodle cup for dinner. Upstairs. Too tired for homework, but not quite tired enough to sleep. Chapter ten of The Phantom of the Opera. A slightly-different-than-the-musical masquerade ball that was less about the Phantom's showing up and more about the fact that Raoul doesn't trust Christine and Christine tells him goodbye forever. I read that part twice. She actually told him goodbye forever. What gives, I wondered. I could picture any number of guys I knew reacting like Raoul with all the sarcasm and mean comments and then changing their minds and taking it all back after it's already too late. But she could say goodbye forever all she wants. I can tell by looking that I'm only halfway through this book, and I doubt that the book goes on without him in it, so she's only BSing too. Whatever, Raoul. Whatever, Christine. I get this drama at school every day. I don't need to read a book for it! What year was this book again? 1900-and-what? Apparently the world doesn't change much in a hundred years.

So he runs off and goes to hide in her dressing room all stalker-like (all these damned guys from old literature are always doing that! I even wonder if that's why stalkers exist today-they get the ideas from these books they make us read in school!)

So then he's all self-pitying and sad, but still hiding in the closet, mind you, because that's just a completely reasonable and logical thing for a guy in love a hundred years ago to do, apparently.

And there she is. Yeah. I'm telling you this because it's the part that stuck with me for days afterward.

"Poor Erik," she says over and over again. It gave me chills when I read the words.

In the part that followed that, "Erik" showed up and sang to her and she sang back and then off they disappeared through her mirror like was supposed to have happened way back in Act I, but after I'd read the words "Poor Erik" my eyes were repeatedly drawn back to them, and even after I'd forced myself to read on, I had this terrible nagging feeling in my stomach like when you have this huge project and it's worth 25% or more of your grade and it just slips your mind entirely until the night before, but it's too late to do it then because you have to go to the library, so you lay awake trying to think of a way to fix it and knowing that you can't, you can't, you can't, no matter what.

Off they went together, and there sat crying Raoul wondering what had happened.

But the words "Poor Erik" echoed in my head. They made me feel heavy as I changed into a nightgown and crawled into bed.

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Reviews?


	12. Chapter 12

Hi, folks. I apologize for my long absence. This one is a bit longer than prior posts on this story to make up for it. And with the exposition firmly out of the way at last, the story is FINALLY moving along! Enjoy!

***WARNING*** This chapter is absolutely RIDDLED with typos. Seriously. I looked over it, and there are SO many. I'm posting this warning because it's faster than fixing all the mistakes and I've got to get back to work. I'll fix the typos later. Mostly it's missing letters at the ends of words. Like hear for heard and stuff like that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be a slacker, but there's no time to fix them all, and so my choices are leave it or take it down, and it's been so long since I've posted that I feel bad taking it back down. So... sorry for the typos, and try to enjoy anyway.

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That day that Ryan came up behind me was the beginning of a lot of things both good and bad. Ultimately, it was that day that started the chain of events that is the whole reason I'm telling you this at all, but more immediately, it was that day that led to Ryan's asking me to the French Club dance.

No, Ryan's not in French Club. Or French class. He took two years of German, just enough to get his language credit, and that was it. But the French Club dance is like all the other dances - just an excuse to have a dance. I mean, it's not like we didn't have a Valentine's Dance just a few weeks before (which I attended with Axel. No joke. No, we were not dating. It's just that Ryan didn't ask me and Axel did. More on _that_ later). But every school club gets to do their thing for a fundraiser, and a dance is a good way to raise a lot of money in a very short time. That, and the French Club dance is fun in a way that none of the other dances really are. See, it's always the Saturday before Mardi Gras, and everyone dresses up. I mean, we all have these costumes laying around from the Halloween before, so it's nice to get a second use out of them. But some folks really go all out.

Like Alex. Oh god. Just _thinking_ about it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

But I guess before I get to that, I better tell you the rest about Alex.

I guess things really changed that afternoon when I looked through the door and realized Alex wasn't just _in_ Mr. Miller's office, but he was _crying_ in there. I mean, I didn't really think about it that much at first, but the next time I saw him, it occurred to me. What was I supposed to say?

I mean, like, was it right to say "Hey, are you okay? I saw you crying the other day..." or not? If it was Savannah or Katie, yeah, no question. Even if it was Melissa I might have said something nice, you know, like an olive branch or whatever. But it was Alex. He was _guy_. What would I have said if it was Ryan? And yet, that was different, too, because if it was Ryan, I would want him to cry on my shoulder. Not that I _want _Ryan to cry or anything, but if he were going to cry, it should be me he cries to, my shoulder he puts his head on, and my hand that runs fingers through his hair until he's done. But that fantasy always leads the same place - he stops crying and kisses me. But this was Alex. Alex. What could I possibly say or do with a crying Alex? Nothing. What would I _say_ to a crying Alex? _Nothing._

_That's_ exactly what I _did _say, that next day in French class. Until he said hi first. And even then I didn't really say anything. I didn't say "sorry" although "my fault" came close. I certainly didn't say "What was wrong?" or "You can talk to me." I shiver to remember it. My parents brought me up right. When someone is sad, you say "Do you want to talk about it?" If they don't, they don't. If they do, you shut up and listen.

Unless they're sort of gross and wipe their nose on their windbreaker, right? Nope. Sorry, Christine. Your parents did not include any exceptions or exemptions. Damn. Why's it my responsibility anyway? Stupid nice-ass parents trying to raise kids with character. Shit. Damn. And _that_ is how I became Alex's only friend.

Secretly, of course. I mean, I couldn't go public with that kind of information. I remembered full well the embarrassment I felt when Savannah mocked me and the absolute mortification that overwhelmed me when the lunch table group all started asking me why I was looking in his direction that afternoon. When I thought of being his friend out in the open I blushed and my heart started to pound in fear of public humiliation, even if I was alone in my room. But when I thought of ignoring him, telling him to go away, acting mean so he would stop talking to me, my stomach turned over in a sickening way, a nasty taste came into my mouth, and fear of my parents being disappointed made me almost as embarrassed before them as I would be before the entire student body.

And so, I was friendly to (but not friends with) Alex - when no one was looking.

We went on that way for a couple of weeks, I guess, before the day in the boiler room.

I think it was the beginning of February. Of course I didn't write it down or anything. I mean, who thinks they're going to need to remember that stuff? But I've been trying to sort of the dates ever since for the police and all. I think it was the beginning of February because it was the first week of January, right after Christmas break, that we had the auditions. Another week or so until I learned I had a Christine part, then I met Alex the day he noticed me carrying the score. It was before the French Club dance because it was before Mardi Gras. Come to think of it, it was before Valentine's Day, too, so yeah, it must have been the beginning of February. I guess I'd been talking to Alex about a month. Only about two weeks of that was I deliberately talking to him on purpose, though.

I wish I had kept a diary or something. Then I'd know the date. What would that entry have said? Dear Diary: Today I accidentally skipped 5th period and got sent home early. No. Dear Diary: remember that guy Alex? Um, no. I guess that's why I don't keep a diary. I wouldn't ever know what the hell to write.

But I don't need to keep a diary because I have a memory like you wouldn't believe. I don't remember the things they tell me are important, like what country Germany invaded first during World War II or which constitutional amendment guarantees us the right not to have to quarter soldiers in our houses, but the things I do remember, I remember like I have them on video and can play them any time I want by pushing the play button in my head.

I remember that day.

Some guys were teasing Alex in the cafeteria. Not my friends this time. Other people. Different group. Athletes, but not the track team group. Could've been football players by their size, but I don't know. It's not that I wasn't paying attention, but I really couldn't see them clearly. I heard jeers, and I _knew_. Before I even turned around, I just _knew _they were for Alex. I glanced over my shoulder. I saw green and gold letterman jackets. I turned back quickly lest my group notice my attention was directed that way.

I put on a fake smile and nodded at my friends and pretended to be part of the conversation. My attention was behind me, over my shoulder and to my right. I couldn't distinguish the words, only the taunting tone of them.

It didn't stop. I looked over again. Other people were looking in that direction and laughing.

At least that day Ben teased him, Ben had come back quickly, I rationalized. This seemed to be taking _forever_.

I tore off a bite of pizza and as I chewed I wondered whether any of the people standing at that table were friends of mine. Maybe if I walked over and said hey I could distract them or something. Come to think of it, maybe even if they weren't my friends I could distract them. I glanced down. I was not dressed particularly distractingly today. Plain jeans and a purple sweater. I wasn't even accessorized. Looking back, I blame feeling bad about myself because I couldn't sing my part, but at the time I just wondered, "What the hell am I wearing?" and "It's a wonder Savannah hasn't said anything yet!"

So much for that idea.

I dropped the pizza crust on my plate and glanced back again.

Alex wasn't responding. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. His head was bent so low I couldn't see his face. I wondered if he was crying again, and I felt my cheeks burn. I bent toward my own tray and poked at the pears in the little plastic cup. _Pears._ Who the hells pairs pears with pizza anyway? Stupid school. I took a slow deep breath and hoped the color had drained from my cheeks.

Allison left my side. Ben got up. So did Savannah. I panicked. Were _they _going over there, _too_? What were _they_ going to do now?

"Come on, Chris," Ryan said.

Come on where? Do _what_? I looked around. Oh. They were just clearing their trays. Almost bell time. I nodded and shove the rest of the pears into my mouth without worrying what Ryan would think.

He smiled. "Hungry?" He laughed slightly as I got to my feet, arranged my purse strap over my shoulder, and picked up my tray. "Ready?" My mouth was full, but I nodded; he picked up his tray and walked beside me to the trash can. He brushed against me twice on the way there, and after I'd shaken off my plate into the trash, he took it from me and put it on his own tray to carry to the cafeteria window. After he shook off his own plate, he took my tray, too. I stayed beside him all the way to the cafeteria window anyway, even though I didn't have anything to carry. On the way back, his hands free, he put one on my shoulder. I grinned up at him.

The bell rang.

The cafeteria turned to chaos around us.

"What's your class?"

I told him.

"I've got Athletics next." It was the opposite direction. "Will I see you later?"

I nodded.

"Bye, Chris."

He squeezed my hand for a second. Then he was gone before I could squeeze his back. I went back to the table for my backpack. All the others were gone. It didn't matter. I was in no hurry. My next class wasn't far, and even if it had been, I don't think I could have felt frantic in that moment. I felt warm and tingly. My eyes were drawn to the door through which he'd just loped, his athletic bag slung over his shoulder. I put my backpack over my shoulders and imagined his arms there instead. I smiled to myself and started for the door.

Poor Alex! I caught sight of him as I turned. He'd finished cleaning his tray and gathered his books, but he still had his head bent low and his hair over most of his face.

I smiled. I still felt warm and tingly. And remembering Ryan's touch, I felt invincible. I steered myself toward Alex.

"Hey!" I told him.

He didn't seem to hear me.

"Hey, Alex! Fine, don't say hey!"

He must have recognized my voice then because he looked up.

"Hello, Christine," he said carefully.

"Hey," I said again.

He smiled at me-that same tight chubby smile that his face could barely contain.

"Well, we better go," I said and started for the door.

He lumbered beside me toward the exit.

"It's nice to see you, Christine," he told me.

"Uh... thanks. Nice to see you too." It felt a little weird.

We passed the restrooms and the water fountain without a word.

Then he stopped.

"Christine," he said urgently.

I had to stop too, to face him.

"Yeah?"

"Can I... talk to you?"

"Uh... I guess."

"Come here." He grabbed my arm suddenly and pulled me into the boiler room.

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Reviews, please?


	13. Chapter 13

Hey, everyone! Okay, so I told you I'd have a new chapter for you "next weekend" and here it is. Ultimately, I'd LIKE to post more again on Sunday but I've got a lot of work to do around my house, so that's probably not going to happen, although I will try. This one is a little longer than the first few-it's about the length of one of my old-time chapters back when I had more time to write. I hope you enjoy it.

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"What the hell?" I pushed him away and moved as far as I could from him in the small space. I folded my arms and glared at him. I don't know exactly why didn't just grab the door handle, fling the door back open and run out, but it might have had something to do with how close he was standing to the door.

He held his hands up, palms out, as if to say I should settle down and relax. And he took a step back away from me. I guess that made me feel stupidly reassured because I didn't take my chance to run.

"What the hell are you _doing_?" I said instead.

He shrugged. "I just... wanted to talk to you."

"Jesus!" I threw down my backpack flung my arms up. "Why _here_?"

He glanced around and looked sheepish. He shrugged again. "I figured it was private in here." Then he seemed to suddenly decide that sounded like a very bad thing to say. "I mean, no one would be all staring at us, if we talked in here."

On any ordinary day that thought really would have freaked me out, but this was, apparently, not any ordinary day. By this time I think I had already forgotten _why _I was feeling invincible, but I hadn't forgotten _that_ I felt invincible.

"Okay." It was true. No one was staring at us. And he had said just before pulling me in here that he wanted to talk to me, hadn't he? "What do you want to talk about?"

He took a deep breath and didn't say anything for a while.

I took the opportunity to look around my strange surroundings. The room was painted a dull gray-even the ceiling and the floor. There were tubes and pipes and the room was noticeably less clean than the rest of the school. Something roared behind me, and I literally jumped.

"It's just the furnace," he said softly. "It's okay."

I nodded and moved a little away from the place where the sound had come from, watching the spot as I went.

"Not here," he said.

Not here? But he had just brought me here! He had just finished explaining _why_ he brought me here! I rolled my eyes unintentionally.

"Come on," he said. He took me by the elbow and headed deeper into the room. I jerked my arm away but followed him anyway out of mindless curiosity, being nice, an inability to say no, I don't know.

It was a long narrow room and he led me away from the door towards the back of the room. He had to bend low and squeeze between the wall and a tank-type thing. I honestly feared he would get stuck, and for an instant imagined myself trying to bring help, to explain to Mr. Smith how I knew that he was in the boiler room in the first place, without telling him the truth. An instant later, though, his windbreaker whisked through the space. I followed; I had to bend as well, but slipped between easily by turning sideways. Behind the furnace he hesitated for a moment then stepped to the side, put his back against the wall and sunk to sit on the concrete floor.

He gestured at a blue plastic school chair sitting opposite him.

I sunk to the floor opposite him instead. It seemed too weird to sit in the chair and look down at him. "So," I said. I couldn't think of anything else to say. "So... now what?"

He shrugged.

I couldn't say anything for a moment, I was so incredulous. "You brought me all the way here for nothing?" I exploded.

He shrugged again. It seemed to be his most frequent response to everything. "I'm surprised you came."

I sat there with my mouth open. Did he think he given me a choice? He had just grabbed my arm and pulled me in when I wasn't expecting anything. "Well you _dragged_ me in here," I said. It sounded harsher than I meant it. No... it sounded exactly as harsh as I meant it, which was somewhat harsher than I'm usually inclined to be out loud.

"Oh, Christine." The way he said that made me shiver. It was like he was centuries old. "If you want to leave, you have only to say so."

"Okay." I waited a few seconds, considering whether to get back up and go. "So...?"

So, I guessed he wasn't going to tell me whatever he'd wanted to tell me, so I stared at a place on the wall and tried to think of something else to say. It didn't take me _too_ long.

"So... how'd you know this place was here?"

He shrugged. "We walk past it every day on the way into the cafeteria. And again on the way back out."

I shrugged back. "We do. I walk past it every day, same as you. But I never thought to go _in_. I never even noticed it."

"I guess I just notice things."

"Yeah, but even if I had, I never would have gone _in_."

"You wouldn't need to."

"Need to?"

"I used to eat lunch in here."

What?

He said it with such a straight face that at first I believed him. Then it dawned on me he must be joking. "Very funny," I said, rolling my eyes.

"What? I did."

"Why?"

The duh was obvious in his voice. "People."

I was perplexed. "Then... why don't you... still eat in here?"

Shrug. "What do you mean?"

"There are still people in the cafeteria, you know."

"Yeah." (shrug) "But it's way better this year."

Better? Seriously? I didn't say anything back. If what I'd seen today was better, I was wondering what was last year like. I was feeling really bad. I don't mean bad for Alex, I mean physically bad. My stomach felt weird, like being nervous, only worse. I told myself I was worried because if we got caught in the boiler room we were going to be in for it, big time. It made me even more nervous.

"Why? What happened last year?" I didn't really want to know, actually. It was just the next most obvious question.

He didn't say anything for a long time.

"Don't you remember?"

It was my turn to shrug, finally. Even after I did he seemed to be waiting for me to say something. "I didn't know you last year," I said. "I don't know what you're talking about. Who did you sit by last year?"

He made a noise that was like a half-snort. "I didn't sit _anywhere_ last year."

I squinted my eyes at him. I was really confused.

"Where was I supposed to sit?"

"I don't know. Where you do now?"

"Last year there weren't enough tables."

Tables, he said. Not chairs. There were always enough chairs, I knew. They know exactly how many of us there are, and there are always enough chairs, except sometimes in the elective classrooms on the first day of school. But there are always enough in the cafeteria. But he said tables. It was pretty obvious what he meant. He wasn't welcome at any table. I wasn't aware that the horrible feeling I had showed on my face until he started to try to make me feel better.

"It's okay," he said. "I like it in here. It's nice. Way better than hanging out in the bathroom."

"Ew!" I said, at the thought of lunch period in the bathroom. And I laughed. Maybe I was just nervous. I don't know why I found that funny, but I did. I laughed. For like, a second. But then there was this look on his face that made me feel really bad, so I shut up and starting trying to figure out how to get away without looking rude.

"What's the matter?" he asked me.

"Nothing," I said. I sounded so fake. He totally noticed it right off, too. I could tell.

"Come on, Christine." I shivered when he said my name. "Don't be like that. I like talking to you. It was almost like you were my friend or something for a minute there.

The room seemed to tilt, my mouth went dry and my face got hot all at once. I felt sick. I glanced at Alex as I tried to figure out how to tell him that I needed to leave.

He had his head down though, so he wouldn't see any frantic gesture I'd make. "I'm sorry," he said in a low voice. "I mean... I didn't mean it like that. I just meant it was like..." He took a deep breath. Then he was all composed again. "I don't mean I expect to hang out and stuff."

Oh, how wrong that sounded! I opened my mouth, but something was wrong and I couldn't it to say an answer out loud.

"I mean, you don't have to do anything. I just think you're nice, that's all." _Wistfully_. He smiled at me and his expression would have made the perfect flashcard if 'wistfully' had been on our vocabulary list.

That was all it took to make me feel guiltier than I have ever felt for anything in my entire life. "Don't be silly!" I said. "Of course we're friends." (Wince) "Why wouldn't we hang out." Oh my god, shut your mouth, Christine!" But seriously, what else could I say? Yeah, I'm semi-popular, but I'm not cruel. At least, not one-on-one, anyway. I think most regular people are only mean in groups.

"Seriously? You mean that?"

I nodded. I probably should have felt better, but I felt even worse that being friends with me could make somebody so excited. For a second, I was absolutely sure I was going to throw up from guilt.

When I thought nothing could possibly happen to make me feel worse, he added, "Don't worry," he said quickly. "I won't tell anybody." He looked at me. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm okay," I managed. "But I think I need to get out of here."

"Absolutely!" He was on his feet scrabbling toward the exit. "This way, this way." He peeked out the door then opened it wide and ushered me out. "Here you go. Are you sure you're okay? You look a little sick."

"School lunch," I managed to blame. I turned away and took two steps running before it came up. My face felt hot with embarrassment and nausea. I slid to my knees and coughed a couple of times. The dizziness faded and I noticed that apparently instinctively, I'd gotten my hair up with my left hand. My right supported me over a nasty mess I don't want to talk about, and behind me stood my new "friend" asking if I needed anything. I shook my head once, then considered. "Nurse?" I suggested. Then, "No. Janitor." Yes, a janitor to get the mess cleaned up before anyone could see me and embarrass me to death.

I got shakily to my feet.

"Let me take you to the nurse."

"No," I said. "I'll be fine. Just... get the janitor." I turned and ran off to the nurse myself.

It turned out I couldn't have planned it better. My teacher had noticed I was missing and the nurse never believes those I-wasn't-skipping-class-I-was-in-the-bathroom-throwing-up stories, but I was in luck. The custodian vouched for me that someone had gotten sick downstairs outside the cafeteria, and some other student - someone whom no one knew was my friend - said he'd seen me getting sick. It was easy to fill in the rest with believable lies: I'd felt sick right after lunch, so I went into the bathroom (conveniently close to the boiler room I'd actually been in). But after a while of sitting in there not getting sick, I figured I'd better get to class before I got in trouble. Unfortunately, I didn't get very far down the hall before the sick feeling came back and voila-no detention. Not even a phone call home. Except the one the nurse made to say I was sick. Which got me a free ticket home early. Nice.

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Reviews, please?


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Greetings, everyone! So, for those of you who watch the news and heard about those two kids who died by suicide due to bullying... that happened in my city. Yeah. Not my school, not my school district, but right here in my city. Too sad. Really just too sad. If I hadn't been trying to write ahead, I'd post an especially sad chapter to make the point, but this is the chapter that happens to be ready next, so here it is. I hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I only own the stuff you don't recognize.

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Except it wasn't.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and all that night and the following morning wondering if Alex had made the connection that I had thrown up right after he called me his friend. That thought made me feel even worse, so I didn't eat any dinner or any breakfast, which, in turn just made me lightheaded and weak. Dad let me stay in bed. Mom came in and cooed over me when she got off her shift. Matt made me an origami dinosaur that looked remarkably like an origami crane. I played along, mainly because I was too tired for anything more.

Dad brought me crackers and flat 7-Up told me all about how bad Harrison's food was when he went there. "Brown gravy or white gravy today? Wrong! It's green gravy." _Yuck._

I thought about trying to tell Dad the truth, but I was just too tired, so instead I kept the conversation on the food until he left and went back downstairs so I could go back to sleep. By the following day, though, I was hungry as hell, and you can only refuse to eat for so long, no matter how upset you are. By Sunday afternoon I guess I was back to pretty much normal, unfortunately.

So ultimately, I had to go back to school on Monday. I didn't want to. Bad food only makes a person sick for so long, so the fact that my stomach still felt downright awful when I thought of school proves it wasn't just the school lunch. First period would be Alex, and I'd have to say something. I didn't feel like it.

I thought quite seriously for a minute about skipping down in the boiler room before it occurred to me that there was always the chance that Alex would be skipping there too. I decided to cut in the practice rooms instead. So one ever goes there except band students, I couldn't think of anyone in band that I specifically needed to avoid.

The practice rooms were particularly populated when I got there, though, with like, every band kid in the school. Ugh. Interscholastic league contests must be this month. I stood in the band lockers and felt my utter disappointment. French it was, then. I hoped that Alex was in the boiler room and not Madame Welsh's class, but I wasn't feeling particularly lucky. I trudged from the practice rooms past the auditorium toward the language hall. _Past the auditorium_. Yes! I ducked inside. No one there!

Out of habit, I headed for the stage, and out of habit I stood there and debated whether to sing or not. I considered what was wrong with me. It was the auditorium, I decided. It was too big, too open; it made my voice sound small, not at all like at home in my bedroom where my voice was loud and clear and strong. Not at all like in Diane the vocal coach's little studio in the back of The Music Shoppe, either. There, somehow, everything I sang sounded tremendous -or at least it had until recently. No, but the auditorium made me feel the size of an ant. Sure, I'd sung on this stage before last year and the year before, but freshman year I was in the ensemble and sophomore year, despite a larger part, I was still never on stage alone. It was definitely the size the space, the height of the ceiling, the distance from the stage to the back wall. I sang a little three note warm up just to hear how bad it was.

Not bad. Just small.

I worked up the courage to project more and tried again. Same three notes. "Better," I said softly to myself out loud.

I continued in this manner, trying to slowly build my confidence with wordless scales and melodies. I was just about to the point where I thought I was making enough progress that I wouldn't have to quit when I noticed some motion below me.

Alex emerged from below.

A nicely-sounding note turned into a yelp. I literally took three steps back as if he were some monster emerged from a swamp instead of just green windbreaker Alex up from the orchestra pit.

"Holy something" and "What the something else," I yelled at him. "You scared the blank out of me!" Fill in the blanks. They were some of the worst words I know.

He grinned. "Hello, Christine," he said.

"Jesus!" My heart wouldn't slow down.

"What are you doing here?"

"God, Alex, you scared the hell out of me."

"Sorry." He didn't look the least bit sorry, actually. Not that he looked mean or smug or pleased or anything, but the look on his face was bizarre. Not sinister, but definitely I'd go as far as to say mysterious.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I said. I sounded angrier than I was, I think.

He didn't look offended, but he didn't answer, either. "What are _you_ doing, Christine?" he repeated.

"I-" What was I doing? Blowing off class, I might say. But why wasn't I in the boiler room. Avoiding you. I would never say that out loud. I gave the only answer I could get away with. "Practicing." Yes, without script, score, or accompanist. God, I only hoped he hadn't _heard_ me.

He smiled again, a sort of mild closed-lipped smile that you'd expect to see on someone much older. "Forgive me," he said with a wave of his hand. "Please continue."

Sure.

I pretended to regain my focus by pacing a quick circle on the stage. Alex leaned against the wall of the orchestra pit and folded his arms.

I stopped and looked at him. "What?"

He shrugged lightly as if to say "nothing."

"What, you're gonna stay?"

There was that creepy smile again. "Mind if I listen?"

"Listen to what?" (Yup. That can go down in the books as the stupidest reply to anyone ever. But it's what I said. No joke.)

He was dead serious. "To you practice."

"Oh. Right. I guess." And then I just stood there. I mean, there was him and there was me and there was absolutely no way I was going to stand there and sing for him right there with him standing that close. Actually, I wasn't going to sing if he went and sat in the last row of the very back of the last possible section of seats or up in the audion or anyplace else for that matter. Maybe if he went home and so did the whole rest of the school including the janitorial staff, I might consider singing again.

I know what you're thinking. Someone that nervous doesn't belong in musical theatre. Well, duh. I know that now, but I'd never that problem before, and now it was too late. God, I was scared to death.

Not of performing, no. But of performing _this_ part. Truth is, Mr. Becavac didn't give me the part because I was good enough to handle it - he gave it to me because I wasn't bad enough to totally butcher it. As a matter of fact, gossip among the parents was that Becavac didn't even want to do Phantom because kids our age can't really handle it, but Akers is Akers, and Akers calls the shots. Three months ago I would have said Becavac was no fun. Now I completely and totally agreed with him. Damn him for not standing up to Akers like that. Damn, damn damn.

Meanwhile, Alex was patiently waiting.

Reality check. Christine, you are not going to sing in front of Alex or anyone else. You have no clue what you are doing. Hitting that note doesn't mean crap if it sounds like, well, crap. And poor Diane at The Music Shoppe tried so hard to be kind and supportive but there's only so much a real singer can say without coming out and saying I hope you're not planning to major in music with a focus on voice at the university.

Sure, maybe if you were like, my grandma or something you would say "Oh, wasn't that pretty?" but it didn't sound anything at all like my CD, and I was bitter. "But darling, you're _not _Sarah Brightman," Diane would say. (How was that supposed to make me feel better? Yeah, I'm sure she meant embrace the tonality of your own voice, but I sure heard you're not that good.

Something else I wanted to mention: Isn't it crazy how one nasty comment can totally throw you off for weeks but all the people in the world saying "You're doing great!" doesn't mean crap? There's this girl Sheila who is also playing Christine who is simply amazing, but she's - literally - exactly like Carlotta. I think she's said like five words to me since we started, but they were something like "Do you even take lessons?" or something, and now that I'm thinking about it, I think that's sort of the start of when things got bad. Matter of fact, _that_ was at auditions, which explains why I was so surprised when I got the part at all. Whoa.

So I was standing there thinking about all this sh..tuff and, of course, not singing anything.

Alex was no longer leaning against the orchestra pit wall. He had come around to the steps on the right of the stage and clomped heavily up them where he stood breathing heavily for a second before coming a little closer.

"What's the matter, Christine?" he asked me.

Okay, look. I'd been being nice to Alex. I felt bad for the guy. I was pretending to be his friend because anything less was just mean. But he wasn't my friend. Not really, because I didn't know him that much and I didn't really like him at all, and I certainly didn't feel like confiding anything to him. So I just felt creeped out.

"What?" I asked, backing away.

"It's not like I'm going to be critical, Christine. I already heard you from the pit and you've got a very pretty voice. I'd just like to listen."

I scoffed. "I don't like to practice in front of other people."

He nodded. "I understand that. Would it help if I didn't look at you?"

"It would help if you didn't listen," I blurted.

"I won't say anything," he said.

"Not like you'd have anything to say," I added.

"Of course not."

He looked at me and I felt really weird. It was like he saw right through me, saw how I was scared and embarrassed and everything all at once.

What the hell did he know? It annoyed me. "It's not just like singing along with the radio in a car or something," I told him.

"Of course not. It's not even like singing in the studio."

I felt cold. What could Alex possibly know about the studio?

The dude reads minds, I tell you.

"Christine, I could never in a million years get up and stage and do what you do. I could never even try out. I wouldn't ever even sing in front of my own family.

Oh my god the boy sings. I don't know how I could tell that from what he'd said, but I just knew all the sudden that he'd had some kind of singing lessons.

"Since when do you sing?" I said warily.

"Since," he rolled his eyes up to calculate, "I was about eight years old and the speech therapist recommended it."

I felt my eyes get big and my mouth fall open.

"Oh, hell," I told him. "There is no way in hell you're hanging around listening now! No way!"

"I said I wasn't going to be critical, Christine!"

"God, out loud no! But then you'll go around thinking 'Oh, Christine, she thinks she's some great singer or something but she really sucks.'"

Once the words were out, it was too late to take them back, and he knew what I thought.

I retreated back to my old argument. "I am _definitely_ not singing in front of you now," I told him. I waved a finger at him to make my point and went down the steps at stage left.

"Why not?" He followed me.

"_Hell_ no!" I continued. I'd started laughing by this point. I don't know why, but I was laughing.

"Well, you'll have to eventually, Christine," he said mysteriously.

I stopped about five rows up the auditorium floor, turned back to glare at him and put one hand on one hip. "Oh yeah? And why is _that_?"

"Duh. Because you're _in_ the _musical_."

"_So?_"

Oh holy shit. How had such a detail escaped me?

"Oh my God." My knees felt weak.

He was right beside me now.

"You'll _be _there," I gasped.

"Of course." It really was no revelation. We live in a small town, and our drama guild is really good. Everyone goes to the spring musical.

"_Everyone_ will be there." I could barely whisper.

"Yeah."

I took a deep breath. "I am _so_ quitting." I said loudly.

"Don't be stupid, you can't quit. They'd put someone really bad in your place then!"

Did he emphasize _really_ on purpose? "Oh _thanks_!" I told him. I almost reached out to shove him, but he was just out of reach. Weirdly, something in my brain found this funny, and I started giggling.

"You know what I meant," he insisted.

"You think I suck!" I cried through hysterical laughter.

He was sort of laughing too by now, but struggling to keep a straight face. "I would never say that," he insisted seriously.

"Oh my God!" I burst out. "You didn't just say that!"

"That's not what I meant!"

I was laughing so hard I couldn't even argue. He was grinning broadly. What the hell? "Oh my God," I managed to gasp again. I pushed my hair back. It had gotten a little wild during that last exchange. I couldn't think of anything else to say so I just stood there by the side door of the auditorium where we'd stopped.

He glanced at me and then at the door and seemed to decide something suddenly. "Come on," he said, putting a hand on the door. My laughter died.

"What? Why?"

"Let's go!" He pushed the door open, grabbed my arm and whisked me out the door before I could say no.

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Okay, folks. I'm updating more often, and stuff is finally actually happening. Surely this deserves a couple of reviews, no?


	15. Chapter 15

Hi, everyone! I think I promised once a week for as long as it's possible, and I think it's been just a BIT over a week, but pretty close, so here's your chapter. Those of you who are enjoying Alex will be pleased to see that he's in this one a lot. I think we're well on our way to progressing to where we're actually going now!

* * *

Alex has this beat up ancient car, apparently. It wasn't parked in the student lot but out behind the band hall where the fine arts teachers park. He led me all the way to it.

"Are you stupid?" I asked him when he unlocked the passenger side door and opened it for me.

He blinked at me and didn't answer. He seemed to be trying to decide whether I was insulting him or not.

"I mean," I rephrased, "We'll get busted."

He looked relieved. "No we won't," he said. Simply. Calmly. He was certain of it. He waited for a moment as though to help me into the car. I didn't move, and eventually he gave up and went around to the driver's side, unlocked it, and climbed in. He had to bend low to slide into the seat behind the steering wheel, and the seat was pushed all the way back and reclining slightly to accommodate his bulk. I took this in without thinking at all about it. I remember it now in pictures and have to struggle to come up with words to say it. He leaned over toward the passenger side and looked up at at me.

"Have lost your _mind_," I said, bending to look in to meet his eyes. "You can't leave campus in a _car_!"

The school was on top of the hill, and there was only that one driveway. Cars coming up the driveway were checked for driving passes every morning as they came in and every afternoon as they left. Students were not permitted to leave mid-day for any reason, and going down the driveway would be way more obvious than walking out past the bleachers. Hard to hide behind something _in a car_.

Alex gave his signature shrug. "I do it all the time," he said.

"Oh please." How could I believe him? No one, no one left Harrison campus without getting caught, but Alex somehow managed it? Alex, whom it was impossible to miss because he was so utterly enormous? Alex, who, because of his size just _can't_ run fast enough to avoid getting caught? Alex gets away with this? Impossible.

He raised his hairless eyebrows at me through the window of the champagne colored Grand Prix.

I took it as a challenge.

I sighed, grabbed hold of the edge of the roof and swung in.

The fabric was a velour the same pale shade as the paint of the car and in shabby condition. A crumpled McDonald's cup in the cup holder looked like it had been there since decades earlier when the car was new. The carpet was a little dirty and a lot worn. A figure of Yoda from Star Wars stood on the dashboard, and a collection of weird items hung from the rear view mirror. The dash looked like polished wood, and all the instruments were round. The dash gave the impression of an antique aircraft while the carpet and decor was from the kids' basement hangout on That Seventies Show. I smiled at Alex to hide my discomfort. He turned the key in the ignition and pumped the gas. I remember thinking how I'd never seen anyone do that before to start a car. He drove with both feet-one of the gas and one on the brake, and sometimes used both at once. The car's engine roared in a way that Mom's car and Dad's car never did, but it didn't smoke or shudder or stall, so I guess it wasn't as bad off as it seemed.

Alex didn't seem to notice anything wrong with the car at all. His chubby fingers twisted the radio dial then seemingly randomly punched buttons in rapid succession. I have no idea what music played for each button because he flipped through them so fast. I heard yip, erp, mm, kit, duh before some huge symphonic sound blasted over me so loudly if I'd been a cartoon my hair would have blown back - or even off.

I gave Alex a wide-eyed glance before I could stop myself. He reached for the radio again, but instead of turning it down, he turned it up and grinned at me as though this loud sound was supposed to impress me. I fake-smiled back and faced forward. Alex palmed the wheel and turned a hard right as we left the school driveway. I glanced back over my shoulder to see if teachers and administrators pursued us. Only open road lay behind us. I smiled involuntarily. The music burst from loud trumpets and horns to racing staccato piano playing. It was still loud, but not quite as overpowering. I felt relieved. Alex's chubby fingers fiddled with the dial and turned it down some. I guessed he preferred the horns over the piano.

Alex swerved into the left lane and put the gas pedal to the floor. I gripped the edges of the seat and fixed my eyes on the radio rather than on the road. The stereo unit seemed wildly out of place in the dash; it was sleek and black with color-changing LED lights, twelve preset radio stations, a 12 CD disc changer and, if you believed the lettering, XM radio. It occurred to me that I would make about the same impression to someone looking in from the outside. There was this old clunky car with a whining engine and worn interior and there was Alex, big, overweight, clumsy and sloppily dressed, and then there was supposedly-normal me with my neatly manicured nails and trimmed-every-six-weeks blond hair dressed in Abercrombie. I went with the stereo system, I decided, though I didn't exactly go with the music, although it _had_ gone through another transition and was now more light and delicate than before. Alex's fingers messed with the equalizer until the notes seemed to come from all different directions like the light in a skating rink on Retro Night. I shivered. Alex headed east up a familiar highway. He took the twists and turns through the next town over without slowing down. Neither of us said a word until the ground flattened out and the road turned straight.

"Where are we going?" I finally said. Most kids who skip go to the Dairy Barn or down to the drainage ditch to smoke and drink. I don't know anyone who drives clear out of town. I imagine if one had a car, one could go almost anywhere, and yet, I had never even considered the possibility.

Alex looked amused. "It's a secret," he said.

"Like the boiler room," I added.

"Like the boiler room," he agreed.

"It won't be a secret once we get there," I mused.

"The boiler room is still a secret, isn't it, Christine?" Alex took his eyes off the road long enough to give me a meaningful look.

"Not from me," I said.

"But you've kept my secret," he said. It was half question, half statement.

"Of course I have." It was all statement.

"I knew you would."

I forced myself to grin as though this pleased me, but, reality check: it creeped me out just a little. It occurred to me that no one knew where I was. My parents thought I was at school. The school's official position would probably be that they thought I was at home. If I went missing, no one would really even notice until school was out. And then there was practice. Dad would assume I was at practice. As often as I'd skipped practice, everyone there would probably assume I'd gone home. So, unless Becavac picked today to call Dad and tell him I was getting cut from the guild for not showing up to practice, no one would know I was missing until after practice. At the rate Alex was driving - over sixty five - I could be two states away before anyone knew I was gone. Still, Alex was obviously harmless from my experience with him in the boiler room. He was turning out to be far less creepy than I thought he was when he first gave me that book. I tried, as I watched the trees whiz by, to figure out when that had changed and why. No use. I couldn't focus with the high volume classical music in my ears. A few moments earlier I had decided it was probably Beethoven, but the more I thought about it, the more I wasn't sure. It certainly wasn't anything I could easily recognize. Leave it to Alex to be into obscure classical. I thought of asking him, but was afraid that it would be something moderately famous and I would look dumb for not knowing. I could always claim that I was more into musicals than symphony and explain that it simply wasn't the type of music I would know about. Matter of fact, that was absolutely true. But I wasn't going to let him see any weakness. He still scared me at least a little bit.

He made a sudden stop at a light as we entered the next town, a small city with a small private university. I thought maybe we were going there, but he went past the university entrance and turned left at the light, then left again. We were heading back in the direction we'd come, but towards a different highway. Before we got to the highway he braked suddenly and swerved into a parking lot of an historic looking old building. It could have been a massive house or just a small building of some other type; I couldn't tell. There was space enough for about eight cars to park, and only one car besides Alex's was there. For a moment it crossed my mind that this was his house, that he lived here, and I actually laughed a little out loud to think that someone who looked the way Alex looked and got treated the way Alex gets treated lived in such a big beautiful home. Then I remembered that we were way out of our school district and that if he lived here, he couldn't possibly have gone to Harrison. Meantime, Alex had gotten out. I sat there, still staring up at the looming building.

Alex appeared at my door and opened it all old-fashioned like and held out his hand to me. Without thinking I instinctively grabbed it in order to pull myself up from the low car. I let go again right away, though; there was something weird about his hands. He didn't seem to notice my reaction; he motioned for me to go up the front walk. I went. Slowly. This was weird.

He lumbered along behind me and I couldn't decide whether he was creepy or mysterious or embarrassing. I decided that Alex himself made the same impression as his beat up car with the amazing stereo system - something about his personality didn't fit his body, or something about his body didn't match his demeanor, or something about the look on his face didn't quite - -

I had to stop thinking about it because we got to the door. There was a small brass plaque on the door that told me this place was an art museum. An art museum? Seriously? I glanced back at Alex in confusion. He was smiling faintly as he ushered me in. There was no mistake about it: Alex was secretly taking me to an art museum. I couldn't decide whether I was disappointed or not. On one hand, I'm not particularly into art. Or museums. On the other hand, an art museum is a lot less creepy than a lot of secret places he could have taken me to, so it wasn't that bad.

There was an elderly lady at a counter. She smiled faintly at Alex and Alex nodded at her. She did not ask us if we were truant from high school or tell us that she would call the police if we didn't leave. I looked confusedly at Alex, who pulled a few crumpled bills from what appeared to be a wallet and dropped them into what appeared to be an honor-system admittance fee collection. I reached for my purse and realized it was sitting in the auditorium with my backpack. _Crap_. I didn't even have my ID if I needed it.

But at the moment, I didn't seem to be needing it.

Alex walked in front of me now, seemingly leading me through the place. I followed dumbly. After all, what do I know about art?

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Review Begging: You do realize it's the only reason I bother to post at all, no? I could never just write a book and publish it. I DIE without regular feedback!


	16. Chapter 16

Okay, so there are parts of this chapter that feel hokey to me, but it's the way it worked out. I'll fix it later if I can. Assuming I can stand to read this again later. Because my stuff ALWAYS feels hokey to me, say, a year AFTER I've written it. So if it already feels hokey now, what's it going to be like in a year? Dreadful. But because some of you are enjoying Christine's story, I'm posting it anyway because waiting until I fix it enough that I feel better about it could take a while, and I think I promised you updates once a week. So please check it out, and if it's too weird for you, too, please be gentle with me, as I did WARN you in advance it was weird.

* * *

I made up my mind to try to pretend to be interested in art, or whatever, but I couldn't even imagine how to pretend to be interested. I mean, what do you do with art besides _look_ at it? I stood. I looked. I walked by. I looked. I walked up and down a corridor where paintings lined the wall. Landscape, still life, portrait... I looked.

After what seemed like forever I saw something I could actually make a comment about, but when I did, Alex didn't answer. He was standing across the corridor looking at something else. I trotted over and got as far as "Hey, come look at -" before I decided that interrupting him wasn't a particularly good idea. Maybe Alex was really obsessively weirdly into art, I don't know. He didn't seem to be aware that I was there for quite some time. When he did notice me again, though, he seemed to notice me singularly. He gestured for me to follow him, then stalked off down a corridor with me trotting after him like some kind of dumb-ass dog. I was starting to get mad at him for ignoring me. I was starting to think how I'd ignore him back the next day at school and then he'd know how it felt. And then I remembered that he already knew that. People ignored him all the time anyway. It probably wouldn't even bother him. Oh wait. It would, I bet, because he thinks I'm his friend. His only friend? I certainly hadn't seen any others. Great. I was stuck with him. I continued plodding after him thinking of how I was stuck with him. Finally I arrived at the conclusion that Alex doesn't have any friends because he doesn't know how to treat them. He probably doesn't know how to treat them because he doesn't have any, and it's a vicious cycle going 'round and 'round and 'round.

And then he stopped so suddenly I literally ran into him.

"Sorry," I muttered and started to back away, but he'd whirled around quickly and put his hands on my shoulders.

"Here!" he said excitedly.

"Here what?" I tried to back away but he pulled me forward a little with short gentle tugs. Then he let go and backed away from me, palms out.

"What are you doing?" I whispered.

He nodded at me. "Sing something."

I didn't answer. I just stood and stared at him. I was _so_ confused.

"Go on." He waited. "Or do you want me to leave?" He turned and continued in the direction we had been going.

"What?" I ran after him. "You'd leave me here? That's rotten!"

He laughed. "No, silly. I'll go to the next gallery. Where I won't hear you. You know."

I bit my lip and squinted at him. I was vaguely aware that I had been practicing when he asked me to leave school, but it hadn't occurred to me that there was any connection between that conversation and this one until, well, now.

"If, you're going to go someplace else so you don't hear me, why didn't you just go to class and leave me in the auditorium?"

The smile on his face was a cross between actual humor and pitying me for my stupidity. I looked around. I couldn't figure out what I had done that was stupid.

"Why do you want me to sing here?" I asked carefully.

He shook his head. "Not here," he said. He trudged back to the spot I'd be standing a moment before. "Here."

"Huh?"

He pointed down, then up.

I looked down. He was standing in a circle that was part of a diagram of planets in the terrazzo of the floor. I looked up. There was a domed ceiling with constellations painted above him.

"Why there?"

He stepped off the disc.

I stepped onto it. It was obvious that's what he wanted me to do it, right?

He said nothing.

"Here?" I said.

He took a step further away and pretended he couldn't hear me.

I looked around. "Why here?" I said louder. My voice echoed off the dome. _Weird_.

"Well? Why here?" I asked him again.

He grinned at me. "What do you hear?"

"Nothing," I said.

"Seriously? Nothing?" He stood directly behind me, put his lips near by ear. "You don't hear that?" His voice echoed as well.

"What, the echo?"

I was still baffled.

He sang... something. I wish I could say what. I never asked him. It wasn't in English, and it wasn't anything I recognized. I will say that his voice was much deeper than I would have expected from his speaking voice, and he sounded much older, more adult than I ever would have imagined either.

And he wasn't bad at all, either.

Now, based on everything else I've already told you, you'd probably think that would make me want to sing even less, but there was something really weird about standing there on that planet and looking up at the constellations that made me feel like it wasn't really me and it wasn't really Alex. He was standing behind me, so I couldn't see his ridiculousness in that god-awful windbreaker and I didn't have to look in his eyes.

When he stopped, there was this silence like he was waiting for something. Then he said very softly in my ear in a voice that was not at all Alex, "You do not know it?"

I shook my head.

"I apologize," he said softly in my ear. "Sing anything you know." I noticed two Greek-looking pillars in front of me and could sort of guess that there were two more behind me. I wondered what exactly this was, who had painted the ceiling, and why was it here in this little-known museum two towns from my house.

My heart pounded. I don't know why. Suddenly I didn't know a single song, couldn't think how anything I used to know began. I'd be going over the "Think of Me" lyrics for what, weeks and couldn't remember them, so I guess it shouldn't have been surprised me that I couldn't remember anything now. It did surprise me, though, when a line out of "Think of Me" was the only thing that _did _finally come to me. Not the beginning, but, weirdly, the line that begins "If you happen to remember," I stopped as soon as I cut off the word "me" and was absolutely silent for several seconds. Then I cracked up laughing, and my laughter echoed all around me as well. Alex whistled. I tried a football-game whoop. Alex imitated the bark of a large dog. I sang the first line of the banana boat song. For a few seconds Alex joined in, but then we both cracked up laughing and no one sang anything for quite a while.

"Hey," he said after we'd finally composed ourselves again, "I'm going to go up and look at some portraits on the second floor."

"What? Oh. Oh yeah. Sure. I..." I glanced up at the domed ceiling. It was really quite cool, actually. "I'm going to stay here." He drifted away without answering. I stood there just staring up for several minutes. The constellations were amazingly realistically done, and the echo, of course, was just amazing too.

I waited until Alex's awkward form disappeared from view then calmed myself with a few deep breaths. I reminded myself that no one was here, not even Alex at this point, and forced myself to do those crazy warm-ups Diane makes me do that remind me of the fire siren in the town we used to live in. Up, down, up down, up down.

How Alex could possibly know that this little corner of the art museum was the solution to the problem of the auditorium I will never know unless what he told me is true, and it cannot be true, but it does not matter how he figured it out. My voice - under the little dome on the first floor of some unheard of art museum - sounded huge. I spread my arms wide and sang without words. I closed my eyes, imagined I was someplace else and just sang. I don't remember now what I sang. Just snippets of everything that came into my mind. None of it went together and it didn't matter. And when I ran out of other things to sing, I sang "Think of Me" all the way through from start to finish. When I finished I was breathless and happy. I ran down the corridor and up the steps, but Alex was nowhere obvious to be seen. I went back down, back past the dome (and could not resist singing one last wordless tone as I stepped on the central disc) and back past all the paintings I'd viewed earlier. I passed a mirrored cabinet that displayed several small sculptures and saw my reflection for an instant. My hair was wild, my cheeks were red, and although I had almost no makeup on, I didn't look bad at all. I let myself fantasize that this little art museum was actually magic as I hurried down back to the front to make sure Alex's old car was still out front.

I found Alex.

He grinned. "Oh, hello again, Christine," he said. "Would you like to look around more?"

I hesitated. I thought of saying yes to be nice. After all, I had had a nice time, hadn't I? And it was only because of Alex. And yet, I wanted to go back. "Well, I would," I lied, "but..." I suddenly remembered! "I left my purse and my backpack in the auditorium. What time is it?" And my phone was in my purse! I was _so_ out of touch with everything!

"It's not that late," Alex started as he hitched up the sleeve to his green windbreaker. I saw the scaly skin of his arm and drew back a bit, but before I could get all weirded out, he said, "Oh, crap! It's late," and he winced. "We have to go _now_."

I nodded and started toward the door.

The old lady at the front said something, and Alex ran clumsily back to hear what. I continued toward the car.

He paused for a minute at the door. "Yes," he said. "Yes, she is. Very much so."

I was at the car waiting when he came out. He ran to open my door. I couldn't watch him run; it was just too embarrassing. He opened the door for me again. "You don't need to do that," I said. I mean, that's more a boyfriend girlfriend thing, right?

He hurried around the car and got in, same as before. "You should have waited," he told me. "She said you're talented."

I turned and looked out the window. _Oh my god, she could hear me_. I felt the blood rush to my face. "I hope you told her thanks for me."

Alex gunned the engine and the car leapt into reverse faster that most people would ever back up. He slammed it into drive and the car leaped forward before it had even finished reversing. The gears protested and the tires squealed. We were back on the highway in seconds and speeding. "I did," he said. I turned to stare out the window and met my reflection's eyes. Of course, I knew what he'd really said. He'd agreed with her. And added 'very much' to it.

Maybe Alex could tell I was embarrassed, or maybe he just never drives without music, I don't know, but a second later there was music blasting once again.

"You're not that into classical, right?" he yelled over it.

"What?"

"You're not that into classical?"

I shrugged.

"Or opera, right?" he yelled again.

I shrugged again.

The CD changer clicked and whirred for a few seconds and Alex punched buttons, then launched into some rock ballad with piano followed by squealing guitars.

"Do you know this song?" he yelled.

"No!"

It hurt my ears, but it felt mean to say so.

He let it play for a few seconds, then stopped it.

"Wait. I know what."

"What?"

"This." Push. Click. Music. "No." Push, click. "No. No. No." Click, click... He found it. _Phantom._

"No way," I said.

"Why not?"

I didn't answer. I just laughed.

"Hold on." He pushed the skip button until he found the track he wanted.

"You're really into _Phantom_, aren't you?" I said in the lull while he searched.

"Actually, I just bought this," he said. "I never really liked it before now."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I told you. The book is better." He signal and changed lanes without looking up from the stereo. "But I figured if you're reading the book, the least I could do... Here. This one."

'Overture' started and Alex turned his eyes to the road and mashed the pedal. The car leapt forward. I sang along. So did Alex. Anyone looking in from the outside would have thought we'd been friends all our lives, I bet.

By the time the song ended, we were close to the school. Alex swerved into the post office parking lot. "It's too close to dismissal," he said. "We can't go up the driveway right now without getting caught."

I cussed.

"Cut through the stadium. You'll still make it to the auditorium in time for practice. I hope no one messed with your stuff."

"Me too!" I said. I leapt out, slipped through the gate, raced half way around the track and under the bleachers. Sure enough I made it. I got all the way to my stuff before I felt bad for leaving without even saying thanks.

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Kind and encouraging words are always appreciated!


	17. Chapter 17

Greetings, all! I apologize yet again for my long absence. I hope the chapter makes up for it.

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I don't guess I have to tell you that practice went great that afternoon, do I? I was just on a roll after that. Mark commented on it, and so did Mr. Becavac. No one else said anything, but I could see it in their faces. The only one who looked disappointed was Sheila, but then, nothing makes her happy but herself, so what did I expect, anyway?

I went home in a good mood, got all my homework done and had time left over to watch TV with Dad and the boys. I woke up early without feeling tired, got to school on time and ran into Ryan in the morning first thing by the lockers. Life was sweet.

Practice was good, classes were good, even nasty school lunch was sort of good. Savannah and I volunteered to be on the prom planning committee since the junior class is responsible for throwing prom for the seniors. The senior class got an aerial picture taken out on the practice field standing in the shape of the number eleven because they were the class of 2011. The photographer stood on the roof to take their picture. I jogged by during PE and slowed down to watch.

Ryan's coach cancelled practice because it was a bye week or something and Ryan came to watch me practice. And that night after practice he hung around for a long time. He called me on my cell phone even before I got home that night and talked with me until Dad told me I had to hang up and eat something. I played Call of Duty with Trent after that. When I went back to my room to get ready for bed, there was a text from Ryan. "2nite U were gr8!" it said.

Life was good. Really, _really _good.

Except, he still didn't ask me to the Valentine's Day dance, and all the sudden, it was only a week away. As much as I didn't want to admit it to myself or anyone else, I was sort of annoyed. I mean, he called often, texted daily, always acted interested, but never actually said the words "Chris, I want you to go to the Valentine's Dance with me." So there I was, right before the dance with no date.

Not with Ryan, not with anyone.

Any other dance, I'd have made plans to go by myself and hook up with someone once I was there, but you just can't do that for Valentine's, you know?

And then the weirdest thing happened. Or rather, a series of weird things all happened at once and piled up.

It started with Axl in writing elective class.

I guess I haven't told you much about Axl yet. He's tall and skinny with short blond hair and black-framed glasses. Overly studious. Wears these plaid shirts with snaps down the front and tucks them into his jeans like he's a decade older than he is. The quintessential nerd, I suppose. Only no one ever teases him. At least not that I've heard.

And he has a girl friend. But she lives on the west coast. Yeah. I know. It's like the strangest thing ever. Except if you know Axl because he's just Axl and everyone just accepts his quirky ways. Yeah. Quirky. If quirky was a vocabulary word, Axl would be the pictured I'd draw to illustrate it. (He'd also be featured on eccentric and quixotic, actually. Axl is a vocabulary lesson waiting to happen.)

So in the middle of writing elective one afternoon less than a week before the Valentine's Dance, Axl brings it up.

He asks me who is taking me to Valentine's, and I shrug my shoulders. Likely the look on my face betrayed how disgusted I was with my situation. So I'm sitting there starting to get annoyed with Axl for bringing it up and making me feel all shitty again when out of nowhere he asks me if I'd like to go to the dance with him.

I did this, like, triple take at him across the table. Axl and this girl Bekkah had been together for like, _ever_. I don't mean regular high school forever. I mean since _freshman year_. What, almost _three years_? And in three years, Axl has only ever gone to _one_ dance because he doesn't want to go with anyone but Bekkah, and flying all the way across the country to go to a dance with your boyfriend is a little unrealistic, even if Bekkah could pull it off without getting counted absent from school since her bohemian vegetarian parents home school her anyway.

"What happened with Bekkah?" I gasped.

He made a face. "Her grandmother's sick."

I'm sure I looked confused as hell.

"We made plans to go together. We've been planning it literally all year. It's apparently more expensive to fly out in May, so her mother suggested we do the Valentine's Dance this year and prom only senior year. We were treating it like prom. I've got dinner reservations, a tuxedo rented, the works. So I really can't just _not_ go. But I can't, you know, take a date, either."

I was literally stunned. He hadn't said a word about it, and we talk, well, not every day or anything, but whenever there's some free time in writing elective.

"She could still fly out unaccompanied if she wanted," he continued, "but she's afraid her grandmother will die while she's gone and she won't get to say goodbye."

"Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to say back to that. I was still mostly floored.

"Come on, Chris, it's not like a date. You've known me since you were five."

It's true. We even went to that private kindergarten together.

I nodded. He was right. With any other guy it'd be just plain weird, but this is Axl. He's not like any other kid at school. And like he said, I've known him forever. His dad is some type of engineer at the same firm where my dad works in sales. I can remember trying to hang out with him when we were about five. His dad had him reading the _Wall Street Journal_ and I remember my mother talking about damned smart he was. Hey, I was smart, too. I could have read the newspaper, too, if I'd wanted to. It was just too damned boring. I still don't read the thing. Neither does Dad. It's not because we _can't_. I remember telling him one day to look up on the hill past those three Christmas trees. He said, "You're not supposed to call them Christmas trees when it's not December." I swear to you. We were freaking _five_. So I'm used to Axl's weird ways and I didn't think it was odd other than the usual Axl type of odd for him to ask me. I shrugged. "Sure. I'll go. "

He lit up. "Great! I'll text my parents not to cancel the limo." He whipped out his cell phone and got so engrossed in some (probably bizarre) conversation with his dad that he didn't talk to me again the rest of the period.

I sat and vacillated between excited about a limousine and depressed that it wasn't Ryan I'd be in it with.

The bell rang. Instead of saying goodbye, Axl patted me on the head like a terrier and swooshed his hand around and completely messed up my hair. I hoped he wouldn't do that on the way to the dance and shuffled off to class.

Two days later, Ryan pulled me aside in the locker bay, pulled me close to him and and murmured in my ear, "It turns out I will be in town this weekend. Be my date for the dance, Chris?"

Shit, shit, shit! Now what?

Thank God the bell rang.

Ryan kissed me on the cheek and ran off. I turned and ran, too, but instead of going to class I ducked into one of the practice rooms and placed a panicky cell phone call to my mother.

What the hell was I supposed to tell Axl? And what was I supposed to tell Ryan? I hadn't planned for this, and I was _not_ prepared.

"You really need to go with the person who asked you first, Chris," she said. It sounded so simple and obvious when she said it. And then she said a bunch of stuff that only mattered to other girls and their moms. "Scott's probably already bought a corsage for you, and it's way too late for Ryan to get one. And what are Scott's parents going to do with a limousine? If they cancelled it now they wouldn't get their deposit back. And didn't you two coordinate your outfits, too? Do you really think Ryan can get a tie that matches your dress by tomorrow night?

"I don't care about that, Mom," I started.

"But you _do_ care about Scott's feelings."

"Who?" Oh yeah. Axl-Scott. "Oh yeah. Him. I know."

"What did your father say?"

"Huh?" I hadn't asked him. Dad's even bigger on the values thing than Mom is. Axl, hands-down.

"Tell Ryan you'll go to the next dance with him."

I didn't say anything. My mind started trying to figure out how to trade this for prom. Ryan, I'd love to go with you, but before you asked me, someone else did. But I don't have a date set up for prom yet, so if you'd like to take me to prom instead... Oh yeah. I could probably swing that.

"Chrissy?"

"Yeah, Mom. I'm here. Thanks. You're right."

And so, I went to the Valentine's Dance with a guy who is totally just my friend and Ryan went with someone I totally hoped was just _his_ friend. In the end, it didn't go too badly, but nothing really spectacular happened, and nothing that happened there really relates to the rest of the story, so I won't go into detail about Valentine's Day. But one consequence of the whole Valentine's fiasco is that Ryan started talking about Mardi Gras a lot sooner. Unfortunately, so did Alex.

Yeah. Mardi Gras. The French club has this dance every year on the Friday night before Mardi Gras. It's held at the school, like all the other dances except prom. But everyone dresses up. I'm in French club, but I'm in a lot of clubs. It looks good for getting into college. I went to two mandatory meetings each year, went on the Canada trip because it got me out of three days of classes, and raised money when they told us we had to, but I wasn't really, really into French Club. Of course I went to all the dances no matter who sponsored them, but I hadn't ever, say, been on the Mardi Gras Masquerade planning committee or anything. And I certainly had no idea how heavily involved in French Club Alex was.

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Shameless Begging: Please, please, please? More reviews = faster posting if at all possible...!


	18. Chapter 18

So... I couldn't resist. I had a little tiny bit of free time and even though it would have been more prudent to get ahead on some of my work or catch up on the notes about my kids, I decided to take time out and do this because I really love hearing your thoughts on my crazy Christine. So here's another post for you (and I'm off to go write the next one!)

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So, you felt bad for the Phantom, did you? The Andrew Lloyd Webber phantom? You felt bad for him? Yeah. So did I. Well, if you think that was bad, you really need to read that awful book. I mean I felt sorry for the stage phantom at the end, yeah. And for a few seconds there in the middle when Christine (I cringe that our names are the same!) rips his mask off, but the rest of the time he's not really like some sad crying character that you have to feel sorry for constantly. And he does some just plain awful stuff. Carlotta, okay, that was funny. The chandelier… it just makes a big mess as far as I can tell; no one dies. But what the was point of hanging Joseph Buquet? And Madam Giry said they'd seen him kill. And he certainly tries to kill Raoul in the graveyard. And it's easy to hate him at times, too, like when he yanks the ring that Christine is wearing on the necklace off of her. Lemme just tell you, that hurts. I can only guess how much how much more it would hurt if someone did that for real. And he killed poor old Piangi for nothing, really. The musical phantom is mean a lot of the time. Before now I didn't really notice it that much. I loved the music, I loved the costumes, and I wanted to play Christine someday. That was all.

But this book guy, Erik, he's different.

But I'm getting ahead of myself again, aren't I? When I last mentioned the book, Christine (ugh!) was saying "Poor Erik, poor Erik" and it made me feel so awful I put the book away and didn't read it for a long time. And of course, I was distracted with Alex and Axl and Ryan and school and practice and voice lessons, which are now going much better by the way, and Diane wants to know what's going on with me, what am I keeping from her and why am I so happy all the sudden in addition to suddenly back to singing like I should be? I tell her that the boy I really really like asked me out and we might be going to prom together. She rolls her eyes but laughs good-naturedly. She comments that there is nothing like the singing of a woman in love. I blush furiously when she says it and again later when I'm singing. Is this what a woman in love sounds like? Am I in love with Ryan? The butterflies start up in my stomach, and it's only proper breathing that keeps me from bursting into giggles in the middle of my song…

But when I last mentioned the book, we were at poor Erik (Poor Erik!)

So the next day Raoul shows up to Madame Valerius's place looking for Christine and of course she's there and he confronts her about Erik. Nothing big going on. Raoul is jealous and he admits it. (Three times!) Christine says only her husband has the right to question her and she has no husband and will never marry. I found it really odd that she'd bring up her husband at all if she didn't have one, and I wonder if she's secretly married the phantom—er—Erik. But then, if she married him, why's she pitying him? Unless she felt so bad for him she went and married him. It's possible, isn't it?

But instead of guessing, I just kept reading.

Christine and Raoul started meeting up at the Opera after that. Erik's busy "working," so Christine has all this time, as long as she promises not to see Raoul outside the Opera. It sounds really suspicious to me. I mean, if he doesn't want her with Raoul, why let her see him at all? And if he doesn't mind if she sees him, why put the Opera restriction on her? Unless it's so he can keep an eye on her. But if he's working anyway, then how can he watch her? See? It just makes no damned sense at all. At least the musical made sense in this regard—they all thought he'd actually gone away. She wasn't seeing Raoul with permission. Go figure.

But whatev. By that point I wanted to finish the book just to see how it all resolved itself, make sure it turned out the same was as the musical, and be done with it.

Christine and Raoul reached the rooftops in Chapter 13. Obviously, they did go up there and sing. They didn't talk about their future together or make any promises except one. He promised to help her escape.

I read this part one night when I had stayed up way too late and everyone else was asleep. It was snowing outside and if I glanced out my window everything was black and white like an old movie. It was cold, and I was wrapped up in my fuzzy blue blanket and wearing the slippers my grandmother gave me. I had just decided that the book-phantom was too creepy to be considered romantic and that this book belonged in a category with terrifying creatures, not men and women in love. Blah. And yeech.

_If I don't come to him, he'll come looking for me with his voice._ (Gah!) _He'll drag me off to his house underground_ (See? Horror!) _and then he'll get down on his knees before me—with his death's head. He'll tell me that it loves me! And he'll weep. Ah, those tears, Raoul. Those tears in the two black holes of the death's-head. I can't bear to see the flowing of those tears again._

What the…?

Why am _I_ crying?

"I don't like this book," I said aloud to no one, to nothing, to the empty space in my room.

"_Did you hear that?"_ Christine in the book said.

Stupid book! Stupid Christine sitting up reading past midnight. And all the horror movies I've ever seen all came back to haunt me at once and I could not get off the bed for fear of what might be under it, and yet I knew that to stay on the bed was little safety because a hand could come up through it. Damn stupid Trent for all the movies we ever watched together. I considered going into his room and telling him off for it, but I couldn't hear any machine gun fire through my wall, so he was probably sleeping, and the thought of going down the hall and turning on the light to wake him up brought to mind that part in that movie where the girl walks in on her brother and his face is half eaten off.

And the skull beneath what was left of his face led me right back to where I'd started because it looked sort of like the guy on the cover of that horrible, horrible book!

Stupid book.

I picked it up again and continued.

I remember reading that page like it happened five seconds ago. Christine announced that she thought Erik would die because she had looked at him. Stupidly, I started crying again, which made no sense at all. She got all jumpy and looked behind her, but then she kept talking and then it hit me.

It was not different from the musical at all.

The phantom was right there listening. He was hearing every word. And what she said was much worse than share with me one love one life time. She told it all.

"Shut up, shut up," I murmured aloud. I switched from regular reading to what I guess speed-reading must be like and finally to skimming. "No, no, no, stupid!" I said. "You're an idiot. Hello! He's freaking listening and you're going all on about him and telling all his secrets!"

Jesus, he was right there. I mean _right_ there. He's flipping repeating things she says and on she goes. By the light of day I find it completely impossible that even a hundred years ago anyone could believe that girls are that stupid, but that night I was so terrified for her. He could come out of the darkness at any second, overpower Raoul and sweep her away underground again and that would be the last anyone would see of her.

I sat up in bed—I had been laying on my stomach with my feet up behind me—leaned against my pillow, pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped the blue fuzzy blanket around myself twice and rocked forward and backward as I read. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" I told her.

"Chrissy, who are you talking to?"

I screamed.

My mother was standing in the crack of my doorway in her pink bathroom, and she looked pissed.

"Are you on the phone?"

"What? No!" Jesus, God, Mother, how the hell can you think I'm on the phone? "No." I held up both my hands to show her. The book partially closed and I lost my place. I yelped.

My mother glared carefully at my ears. "Jeez, mom, I said no. Way to not trust me and stuff. I'm not on the fr… frone!" She'd have murdered me if I said freaking. She says it means exactly the same as saying the real deal. She doesn't like flipping or fricking either.

"It's after two, Chrissy. You have school tomorrow."

"Um, duh, Mom. I know."

"What are you doing?"

Gah! Through clenched teeth I told her, "Reading a fr… French book."

She narrowed her eyes and looked from the book to my face to the book again. "Is that an assignment?"

Lie, Christine! "Yeah. That's why I'm sitting here reading it."

Mom heaved this heavy long-suffering sigh as if raising me was killing her. "You need to stop leaving things until the last minute. This is the last time this happens. Or you're going to have to give up some activities. You understand me." It wasn't a question.

"Yes, ma'am."

The door was closed before I got the words out. She was gone.

"Nice." I said to the closed door. Now she threatens me with taking me out of drama. Where was she two weeks ago when I flipping _hated_ it? Oh yeah. She hates _that_ word, too.

I pushed my hair out of my face and noticed my knuckles were wet. Way to go, Mom. I'd be crying that whole time and you didn't even freaking notice. Nice. Real freaking nice.

I couldn't say mad long, though, because I went right back to the book and it was like being transported there. Christine described Erik's home and her first night there, his weird behavior and the freaky black mask. He played the harp and left her a note written in, god, I hope not in blood!

_The tone in which he pronounced those last words moved me deeply_.

On one hand, there has to be a better way to describe that feeling.

And on the other, those words might be just perfect. Or else, there are no words to describe it, so these are the closest we come.

Tears trickled out from behind the mask. Erik said that he has neither a name nor a country. His room is done up like for a funeral and he sleeps in a real coffin. Like a vampire, I thought, except, he wasn't like a vampire at all.

But why was he so angry all the sudden? What did she do wrong? He had been crying only a moment before.

I had been crying just before my mother walked in, and she didn't even notice. I was too tired to come up with anything more original than that, so I figured Christine wasn't sympathetic enough went on.

I read the next four pages as though in a trance. When I was done I noticed that my fingers were cold, my knuckles were white, my shoulders were tense and my lip was bleeding. I think I was crying again, too.

I snapped off the light. Poor Erik, poor Erik, poor Erik. My dreams were strange as hell that night: dark, vague, symbolic and full of tears.

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Please review! It takes only a moment and makes a writer's day brighter!


	19. Chapter 19

Author's Note: This should have been posted a week ago, but when I finished making corrections, my computer froze up and I had to re-edit the old document a second time. Sorry for the delay, hope you enjoy! (Also, I'd like to note that this message was posted at 10,000 feet in the air from a Delta flight using Google Chrome's wifi access that is provided free on all equipped Delta flights during the holiday season. If you are flying Delta this holiday season, take your laptop. It was great!

* * *

The forces of the universe converged and conspired against me. Or for me. Or simply converged and conspired. Over the course of the next two weeks everything lined up so coincidentally that it doesn't take a crazy person to reach the conclusions that Alex did. I saw it too. The odds of such a chain of events happening the way they did is, as Dad would say "so small as to be immeasurable."

I didn't bother to analyze the odds or try to measure them. Briefly in the boiler room with Alex, I did discuss them, add to them, and even encourage them. But mostly I was simply affected by them.

Mrs. Conroy talks about characters who choose their destiny and characters who are fated to do things. If I were a character, I would be the second type. Even when I thought I was making decisions, I was really just acting out a part. At least, that's the way it seemed at the time. Speaking of acting out parts, the only time I felt real was when I was on stage. All the rest of the time, I felt like I was pretending to be someone else. It so strange to feel like you aren't yourself, like you're just pretending to be someone, like the person your parents and your friends and all your teachers know isn't really you.

For the next few weeks, everything that happened seemed like it was purposely set up to happen, so I just went along with it.

The first of these things was the French club Mardi Gras dance. Madame Welsh held an emergency French club meeting. I wouldn't have gone because like I said I hardly ever do go, but she pulled me aside and specifically asked me to go. Looking back, I think it was the first of those orchestrated things. I forget what she said exactly, but I think she might have gotten me confused with someone else. She reminded me of the meeting and thanked me for agreeing to help. I told her I wasn't on the committee and that it must be a mistake but she acted like she didn't even hear. Then something happened someplace else on campus or in the world that caused practice to be cancelled. I somehow missed the afternoon announcements so I didn't know and went to practice anyway. By the time I realized there was no practice, the school bus that would have taken me home was gone. Dad wouldn't be here for me until _after_ practice, so I texted him what had happened and asked him to come early. Just my luck, though, when I told him I'm be at practice until eight, he'd made plans with a client. I texted Trent and offered to do his chores for a week if he'd come get me, but he didn't write back. No response. So there I was stuck at school with nothing to do. So I went to the stupid meeting.

There weren't that many people there. Maybe ten. None of them were my friends. I didn't really know any of them, not even the names of most of them. I walked in and stood there for a few seconds trying to figure out what to do.

"What's she doing here?" I thought I heard one girl whisper to another. The talking one had clumpy brown hair so dull it looked almost gray. The other one had long silky black hair and looked sort of pretty, but I know just from being around that no one talks to her and everyone thinks she's strange.

But here _I_ was the strange one, apparently. At any rate, here no one talked to me. And the gray-haired girl kept giving me nasty looks.

I was debating the merits of walking home in the freezing weather when Alex walked up behind me.

"Greetings, Christine," he said formally.

I jumped. "Um, hi. What are _you_ doing here?"

He laughed. "I'm everywhere, Christine," he said.

If I'd really thought about it at that moment, I think I would have found that really creepy, but instead I was relieved. Yeah. Relieved. It was the first time I was ever happy to see Alex. Not that I was the vocabulary illustration of exuberant or anything. I had been out of sorts since waking up after those strange dreams I told you about from the night before. But I'd say I went from wanting to get the hell out of there to feeling like the whole situation was just moderately annoying once Alex said hi—or whatever the hell he'd just said—to me.

The gray-haired girl stopped outright glaring at me at some point, possibly having reached the conclusion that Alex had invited me. No one talked to me but Alex. I noticed that no one really talked to Alex, either. He seemed to be in charge of a large number of murals; everyone else seemed to have something else to do. I couldn't figure out the theme, but I didn't try that hard to. While other people rushed around with the usual school-dance decorations like balloons, centerpieces, and table cloths, Alex handed me a paint brush and suggested I help him finish the piece he was working on.

Trent texted back finally saying that Dad wanted him to pick up _ from the after school program and take him home and he'd come and get me if I'd watch _ for him. I texted back never mind.

"I'm not finished with Phantom yet," I told Alex when the silence got uncomfortable, because the book was still the only thing we had in common that I could think of.

"What do you think so far?"

"It's depressing," I said. "No offense, but I don't think I like it very much. It creeps me out."

He sat up like a dog on its haunches—we were kneeling on the floor to paint this big backdrop-like mural thing that was supposed to cover most of a wall in the cafeteria.

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Because it's—" I couldn't think of a way to describe the weird way I felt the night before. "It's sad," I finished lamely.

Alex nodded and got back to painting the mural. "It is," he agreed. "It ended badly."

"I haven't gotten to the end yet, remember?"

He nodded again.

"You are going, are you not?"

"Going where?"

He gave me a pitying look. "To Mardi Gras."

"Oh. What? Um. Yeah. I… think."

Like I said, I go to all the dances. Ryan had asked me and although I preferred prom, of course I said yes because a dance with Ryan is a dance with Ryan and I'd be a fool to turn it down.

"I hope to see you there," he said carefully.

"You will," I said back before I thought about it. It was true, wasn't it? I mean, if I was there and he was there, he'd see me there, right? I hoped I hadn't implied anything I didn't meant to imply.

"What are you wearing?"

I shrugged. "I don't know yet." It was the truth. I had this gypsy costume from two Halloweens ago that I really like. I also had this gossamer ghost thing that I bought last year and never wore because Savannah talked me into doing this Brittney Spears thing with her instead.

"I will be Erik," Alex said.

"What?"

"I said, 'I will be Erik.'"

Looking back, it fit right into the conversation, but at the time, it didn't make sense. I stared at him for a few seconds and tried to figure out what to say.

"For Mardi Gras," he explained. "My costume."

"For the dance?"

"Yeah."

"Oh." (How was such a thing even possible? Wasn't Leroux's phantom usually dressed in regular clothes? I tried to picture Alex dressed up from the late 19th century. With a black mask. It would not be a very effective costume. "Why?"

"Because it's a masquerade."

"Yes, but why _Erik_?"

He made a face at me that suggested I was stupid. "Why _not_?" Then, when I didn't respond, "Because it's a wicked costume!"

"Yes, but... No one's heard of him. No one will know who you're supposed to be."

"_You_ will." (Why did the way he said that give me the creeps? I got chills. One second it was just this awkward but otherwise normal conversation, the next I had a very bad feeling.) "Besides, it doesn't matter if they know who I am or not. The costume will be impressive, even anonymously."

"Well, okay then." I was hoping for an opportunity to change the subject.

"You know what would be magnificent?"

"What?"

"If you dressed up—" He stopped suddenly. "Never mind."

I didn't push it. Something about the tone of his voice told me I did not want to know.

Gradually people left until only Alex and I were there. Everything was in order and Madame Welsh said the custodians were waiting to lock up. As if it had been perfectly timed, text messages came in from both Dad and Trent. I texted Dad back that I was ready and told Trent too late, do his chores himself.

"Christine," Alex said suddenly in an urgent tone as we waited for my dad to arrive, "I wanted to ask you…."

"Yeah?"

"I totally understand if you say no."

"Okay." My heart suddenly started to beat harder or faster or something.

"Could I take you to Mardi Gras?"

"Um." What could I say? Hadn't I already said yes to Ryan?

Alex looked out across the parking lot at the tree line beyond the stadium. "Sorry," he said. "Forget it."

He had already accepted I said no. I should have quit while I was ahead. Added, "I'm really sorry," for effect and headed toward the approaching headlights of Dad's Range Rover. It was so easy. But I didn't. Instead I said, "Um, yeah, I guess." What the _hell_? But it was already out. It's not like I forgot I was going with Ryan. How could I forget that? It was in my mind every second of every day. But before my brain could send the ever-important message to my mouth, I had already blurted out "yeah," like a dumbass.

Dad turned left at the top of the driveway of the school and headed across the parking lot towards me.

"Listen, Alex, I told some other friends I'd go with them, so can I meet you there or something?"

He blinked twice and did not look at me. He was still looking out at the trees.

"Did you just say yeah?"

"Um. Yeah." I couldn't help but sort of laugh.

He grinned briefly but his serious expression returned an instant later. He lowered his eyes to the parking lot. "Thank you, Christine. I do hope you enjoy it."

The Rover coasted to a stop at the curb. I jogged to it and climbed in.

Should I have introduced Alex to Dad, I wondered as we drove off. But it was too late, and I wouldn't have known exactly what to say. Instead I just stared out the front windshield and tried to figure out how I would balance Ryan and Alex both at the dance.

Review Request: If you enjoyed, please leave a review. If you did not enjoy, please consider letting me know as well. Thank you.


	20. Chapter 20

Oh. My. Gawd. I am SO sorry! I can't believe it's been THIS long since I updated! Someone suggested in a review LAST time I update that I update more often, and I wish I could, but I'm SO behind at BOTH my jobs, and if you count the paperwork due for my kids, I'm behind at THREE jobs. That said, I composed this in NOVEMBER I think, on a plane going to visit family, and I never could get a minute to upload. I'm glad I waited, though, because I took some time to make it better tonight, and I think it's finally actually right. I am SO sorry for the long delay. Please enjoy!

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The gypsy costume wouldn't even button closed, so I wore the gossamer ghost get up and told myself it was better this way anyway because at least no administrator would complain that my skirt was too short. LOL, the ghost costume literally drags the floor behind me, and is ankle length in front. The white fabric is soft and wrinkle proof, so I just rolled it up in a ball and stuffed it in my backpack along with a pair of white stockings and some baby powder for my face and hair. After the final bell I sat around in the auditorium with other drama members until it was time to get ready. We used the backstage area. I powdered my face and my hair white, put on the gown and wrapped the loose hooded cape around my shoulders and was ready plenty early. I texted Ryan to text me when he arrived and that I'd be in the theatre. I didn't want to be the first one to the dance, and I didn't want to stand around out front in costume, either.

Ryan was the Grim Reaper, complete with an ugly mask. I didn't like the mask at all and urged him to take it off. I even offered to paint up his face backstage, but he insisted on wearing the hideous thing.

At the door I picked up a white plastic mask with pearl beads around the edges. Ryan, of course, did not pick up a provided black mask because he was already wearing his rubber one. I put mine on my forehead like a pair of sunglasses and only put it down when Cassidy came running up with her camera and screamed "pictures!"

In the dim light, the decorations were really amazing, though I'm not sure exactly what the large murals intended to depict. It seemed to me we were in a large hall of a really beautiful building. Usually they try to go with a French theme, but this year, I just didn't get it. Of course, I didn't particularly care, either. I could have asked Alex easily enough while we painted, but I wasn't that interested. Ryan headed to the refreshments area and immediately set out to discover how to eat cookies without removing his mask. I won't describe the result, as it was mildly disgusting.

I lingered near Ryan, greeting friends as they walked by and trying to figure out who would win the costume contest.

Other than the weird attire, it was mostly just a regular dance. Savannah and I quickly found the others and ditched the guys until the music switched from hip hop to ballads. Then we dragged the guys out to the dance floor. Ryan moaned appropriately but let me lead him the middle of the cafeteria and put my arms around him. He put his hands on my hips, pulled me closer than Mom would have approved of and sort of swayed back and forth without moving his feet. I put my head against his chest. He's so much taller than I am that I couldn't lean on his shoulder.

I wished it was prom so he wasn't wearing that stupid mask. This way, I couldn't even look up and stare at him until he figured out it was time to kiss me.

A ripple of conversation erupted over the music and before even looking I knew that Alex had arrived. My stomach turned cold as I remembered that I told him I would meet him there. I was simultaneously grateful for the white eye-mask and regretful that I wasn't wearing a full-head rubber mask like Ryan. I frantically thought up a plan and decided it wasn't yet time to panic. Lots of girls dance with more than one guy. Lots of people had come as singles and were dancing with anyone who asked. Ryan and I weren't exactly together, but I had definitely made it known how much I liked him. A conversation with Alex wouldn't ruin anything with Ryan. Even a sympathy dance might be acceptable under certain circumstances. Besides, didn't everyone have more important things to think about than who I was there with? I sure hoped so. Oh well, I thought. Too late to do anything about it now. Might as well face my fate. Besides, I could always play sick if things went really badly.

I turned and looked at the door.

"Oh my god," I said aloud.

Ryan looked down at me. A couple other people dancing nearby glanced at me too. I guess I was louder than I thought.

Ryan followed my gaze to the door, looked back at me and back at the door again. "What is that?" he said, to me as much as to anyone.

I think I was standing and staring. "It's the Red Death stalking abroad," I murmured.

Everyone turned to look.

A nearby senior poked me in the shoulder. "You in French IV?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, why?" I said, not taking my eyes off Alex. He wore a huge hat with purple feathers and a long red cloak.

"It's 'Red Death who passes,' the senior said. "But you're right. It's definitely le mort rouge."

I only vaguely recognized that she had obviously read the _Phantom of the Opera_, too. I couldn't take my eyes off Alex. I felt very, very strange. I put a hand to my face to make sure I was still wearing my mask, then glanced around. Yes. Yes, it was perfect, wasn't it? Everyone in costume, including me, and in he walks not just dressed as Erik, but dressed as Erik at the masquerade. I couldn't help but smile.

My mask did not cover my lips, of course.

"Who's that?" Ryan asked, maybe noticing my smile, maybe not. Not being able to see the look on his face when he said things was bugging me; it made it hard to tell what he meant without his expression.

"That?" I said, pointing? "Why, that's the Red Death, dear. Isn't it obvious?"

Alex moved through the crowd but did not come directly towards me just yet.

"Come on, I like this song," I urged Ryan. I told Alex I would meet him there. I hadn't promised not to talk to my other friends, not to dance with anyone else or anything. I mean, I hadn't even promised to dance with Alex. I just said I'd meet him there. So I would. In a bit. After all, the dance was three hours, and it was still early.

I spotted Alex again before I was ready to meet up with him and steered Ryan back to the cookie table. He didn't resist at all. His friends all came over and he entertained them by shoving six cookies into his mask at once. I nearly gagged.

Then someone noticed Alex.

I didn't hear most of the conversation and didn't make the connection at first, but when someone commented on a fat skeleton I started to turn to look and figured it out before my eyes found him. I felt my face get hot under the flimsy plastic mask and was once again glad I was wearing it.

"What the f… does that say?" Ben asked loudly. I tried to ignore him, but he was reading Alex's cloak out loud, saying the French words in English. "Nee mee tooch-ezz pass," he read. "Jesus la mort" (he pronounced the "t" really hard) rouge kwee pass."

"God, Ben, it says ne me touchez pas, je suis le morte rouge qui passé," I told him. I hoped he could see me roll my eyes through the mask I wore, "and it means 'don't touch me I'm the red death stalking by.'" _Or something. Whatever. Close enough._

Instead of feeling stupid and shutting up, Ben continued his nastiness coupled with what might have been an attempt to make me feel stupid. "What the hell's he need a sign for? Ain't no one wants to touch that!"

The whole track team cracked up, including Ryan behind his mask. I narrowed my eyes at him, but I don't think he noticed.

The comments continued—I heard things like "Fat Death" and "Red Hog" and more. Worse yet, a few of the comments were actually funny. Fortunately, I don't think Alex heard any of it. At least not then.

"Could we go dance, please," I whined, pulling on Ryan's arm. "This is boring."

"Yes ma'am!" Ryan said and snapped to attention. The boys laughed again. I took advantage of Ryan's apparent cooperation and hurried away. I lost sight of the track boys and Alex and tried not to think about either one. I closed my eyes and held onto Ryan and pretended we were all alone on the dance floor until the music changed again. When it did, I excused myself to check my makeup, pulled my hood as far forward as it would go and trotted up behind Alex.

"There you are!" I said as though I'd been looking for him all evening. I led him out of the cafeteria claiming it was too loud to talk. We wandered down the main hall and slipped into the boiler room.

Alex marveled at my costume.

"It's no big deal, really," I insisted. "It's just left over from Halloween when I worked the SADD Haunted House."

He reached out as though to finger the fabric of my hood but stopped short of touching it. "It's perfect, though," he said. "It's exactly right. Well, almost. It would have been better in black."

"Yeah, I didn't have black," I said.

The topic of our conversation the rest of the evening wasn't anything spectacular or memorable. I left for a short time to re-appear so Ryan didn't wonder what happened to me, but Ryan was wrapped up in a heated discussion about involving whether the track team or the soccer team was in better shape. I squeezed his hand to let him know I was still around and vanished again to return to the boiler room. Alex and I did briefly drift back to the dance. We even danced one song. I had this wild fantasy that like every after-school special that ever aired when I was in middle school, Alex was going to be some secret great dancer, but I was wrong. We more or less shuffled around in a circle, but at least he moved his feet, which is more than I can say for Ryan. I briefly envied my mother's generation; my father certainly knows how to dance! Mostly, though, we retreated back to our secret hideout and talked. It's honestly close to impossible to talk in the cafeteria during a dance.

Alex asked me what I was doing after the dance. I told him I didn't know. After all, who knew? Maybe Ryan and I were going out someplace. Speaking of, it was time for me to get back to Ryan anyway. I did. Somehow, conversation had turned back to Alex. I walked up in time to hear:

"No, but seriously, a dude of that size has no business dressing up as a skeleton."

"Shit, if that's the size of the skeleton, can you imagine—"

"You guys," I interrupted, "It's just a costume."

"It's like Rosie O'Donnell dressing up Brittney Spears," Ben told me. "It's so wrong, someone has to say something."

"Ben, you're an ass. Ryan, could we get out of here?" This was not a conversation I wanted to be a part of.

"Sure," he responded. "Wanna dance?"

"Actually, no, not right now. Could we…" I motioned toward the door.

His tone brightened. "Sure! Where do you want to go?"

"Any place. Whatever."

We sneaked down the hall past the boiler room. Naturally, I did not show him where it was. We went up the stairs at the end of the hall and hid in the locker banks.

"So what's going on with you, Chrissy?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're different all the sudden. I don't know. Not to be mean or anything, but it's like you don't think anything's funny anymore. You're so serious. What was that about calling Ben an ass? Ben's just Ben, you know. You don't have to be mean."

"_I'm_ mean?" Apparently, I go from zero to pissed in less than a second. I didn't even feel it coming on, but next thing I knew I was standing more than a foot away with my arms folded instead of up against him with my arms around him.

"Jeez, Chrissy. We were just having fun."

"Ryan!" His name came out of my mouth in the tone my mother uses with me when I'm in trouble. He looked startled, but not entirely shocked. "I - -" I wasn't even sure what I wanted to say to that. "Ryan, I think I'm sorry to be here with you right now." Oh my god. If I hadn't been so pissed I would been pleased that by the really hurt look on his face he must have really, really liked me. But I was too pissed to be pleased. "Just, stay away from me, huh?"

I turned and walked away.

"Aw, c'mon, Chris," he said, following me. I whirled on him and slashed the air between us with my right hand.

"No, Ryan," I told him in a warning tone. I stormed off.

He was supposed to follow me. If I'm perfectly honest, I have to admit that I did want him to follow me. If he really liked me, I think I thought, he'd follow me. Yes, I had told him not to, but if he walked away without trying one more time, then he wasn't smitten enough. I mean, I didn't want him to cry or beg me not to go or anything. Just a simple sorry would have done it. I wanted him to follow me and say 'sorry I was an ass' or something. I totally would have forgiven him in an instant if he had just said "You're right, Christine. We were mean about that guy. We shouldn't say stuff like that." He didn't have to be friends with Alex. If he'd just flipping leave him alone and not back Ben up... But he didn't follow me. I don't know where he went. I didn't see him again.

I went and sulked in the courtyard until I felt too cold to bear it in my lightweight costume. Then I drifted through the cafeteria like the ghost I was dressed as. I didn't see Ryan. I did see Ben. And a bunch of other people I call friends. Seemed they all went out of their way to ruin Alex's evening. A couple of them stepped on his cloak, and a couple of them went behind him reading it aloud, of course, deliberately pronouncing all the French in English. Neh meh too-chezzzz pahs. Gee soo-ees la mort rowg kwe passay. (Oh! _Who passes_. That passes. Passing. Whatever. Not stalking, anyway.) I stood by the mural I had helped paint and tried to work up the nerve to intervene more boldly on Alex's behalf, but I couldn't think of a single thing to say back that didn't sound just plain dumb. Then suddenly, I felt like crying for no real reason at all. I hurried out of the cafeteria. While the restroom was the logical choice, I bolted instinctively for the boiler room.

I managed to get all the way there without shedding a tear. I made sure the door closed quietly but completely behind me and leaned against it while my breath grew short and caught in my throat. I sniffled and dabbed at my eyes. Even in private I was not going to full out cry. My whole face was powered white, and I had painted on mascara that I happened to know wasn't waterproof.

I was about to squeeze through the space between the pipes and the furnace to get to our secret place, but when I got close enough to squeeze through, I noticed Alex was _already_ in there.

I froze and didn't say anything, because he was very obviously pissed. He'd already taken off his cape, mask, and hat. His jacket was unbuttoned, and at the second I glanced through he happened to punching the wall with his right hand. Then he cupped his left hand around his right and sucked in his breath. A second later he examined his knuckles then shook out his right hand and paced three steps, turned, paced back. The boiler room is too small for pacing. He didn't notice I was there, but I caught a glimpse of his face for an instant. He was pissed off to tears. Poor Alex, I thought.

I retreated back to the door and waited. After all, who knew? He could be pissed at me for disappearing. I crouched by the door to wait. It seemed like eternity, but if I think about it realistically it was probably about five minutes. He paced and panted a couple of minutes, yelled something inarticulate and hit the wall again and then dropped heavily to the floor to sit with his head on his knees.

I poked my head through the space between the furnace and the pipes. He didn't react.

"Psssst!" I tried.

No response. I squeezed through the space and stood in front of him.

"Alex," I said after standing there waiting for him to notice me for a really long time.

"Christine!" His voice was a mixture between awe and ordinary surprise. He rubbed his eyes with both fists and wiped his hands against his red suit. "You're-" he paused to look at me in disbelief. "You're here!"

"Course I'm here," I said. "Where have _you_ been? I was looking for you!"

"Sorry," he muttered. He looked around as though to determine where I'd come from or where he ought to go. "Do you, uh, want to go back to the cafeteria?"

I considered it. "Not really," I said. I was suddenly feeling very blah about the whole dance thing.

He seemed to struggle with what to say and do for a couple of minutes. Then all of the sudden he was confident. "Would you like to leave?" he said getting nearer to me than he had before.

"Absolutely."

With one arm behind me and one hand at my elbow but neither hand actually _touching_ me, he led me up the stairs then out the doors into the crisp night air. I let him take me to his beat up old car. I didn't even stop to wonder what Ryan might think.

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Shameless Review Begging: It's been a long time since you've heard from me, so it's also been a long time since I've heard from you. I hope you haven't forgotten me. Please comment if you have a moment. Thank you!


	21. Chapter 21

It's spring break, so there's time to post. Here's a chapter. I'll try to get you another one during this week as well, but no promises. I wrote this section, then decided I didn't like it and re-wrote it over, which caused a considerable delay. This chapter should have been posted a couple of days ago, and then one after it, if i hadn't made changes, is already written. Due to the changes, though, it's hard to estimate the next post.

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We went that way all the way to Alex's old beast of a car-that's what he called the old Grand Prix: The Beast-which was parked at the far end of the parking lot. It was cold. Really cold. Hdn't it just been warm during the day? That's one of the things I hate most about this time of year. It keeps you guessing. I wished I'd brought a coat and cursed the damn Groundhog, who I thought had seen his shadow this year, all the way to the Beast. I actually wouldn't have minded if Alex's hand had actually made contact with my arm at that point, but it didn't and at last I was finally settling inside the Beast for the drive... where? I had driven myself there, so I didn't need a ride home. My car was on the other end of the parking lot, and I considered asking Alex to just drive me there. After all, where else could we go? Back to Alex's place? But for some reason, I didn't say anything. I just put my seatbelt on and sat there. Strangely, Alex had left the windows down. Yeah, it was warmer earlier today, but hadn't he worried about leaving his car open like that? Then again, who would want to steal the Beast?

Alex pulled out of the parking lot without asking me where I lived, so I figured he didn't think he was giving me a ride home. Unless he already knew. That would be creepy, wouldn't it? He did turn in the right direction, i noticed. But then, lots of things are that direction, like the Dairy Barn and the corner store and the overlook. Other cities, even, if you kept driving on it. Our rival school was down that road, so if it had been football season, we might have been headed that way to paint their mascot our school colors or something. But it wasn't football season, and this was Alex. I just waited to see where I would end up, which was probably pretty stupid on my part. Alex cranked up some symphonic but heavy music and gunned the engine. The wind whipped my hair around and obscured my view. I wrapped my arms around myself in my thin costume.

Alex glanced at me sideways and put up both windows simultaneously. "You're cold," he said.

I shrugged. "I'm fine now," I said. It was true. I'd warm up easily with the windows up.

Alex shifted uneasily in his seat. At the red light he looked carefully at the cuffs of his Red Death coat. "Do you want my jacket?" he asked me.

"No, I'm good," I said. I really was. But I shivered as I was warming up, and I think he noticed. He turned on the heater of the Beaston and pointed all the vents at me.

He didn't say anything. He gave me a look. I felt like I could read his thoughts. He was practically begging me to let him take care of me. I snuggled down into the soft fabric seat and enjoyed the hot air. I even closed my eyes.

"Christine," Alex said suddenly.

I snapped my eyes open.

"Do you mind if we stop for a few minutes?"

"Umm… What?" My heart started pounding way too hard. Suddenly, the heat I had been enjoying so much a second earlier was overwhelming. My armpits felt damp and my eyes and mouth felt too dry. Why would we stop? Where we would stop? For what possible reason could we have to stop? There certainly wasn't anything suddenly very wrong with the car, but Alex's voice sounded urgent. Without words my thoughts turned to how my parents always warned me not to go riding in a car with a boy and how I always thought they were being absolutely dumb. Oh my god, they were right. I panicked. Outwardly I said, "Whatever, sure. If you really have to. Just don't let's be too long or anything. My Dad'll worry." I figured invoking Dad would remind him that all girls have dads and lots of those dads have guns.

"I won't be long," he said. "At least, I hope not." I tried not to think about all the things that could mean, but you know how it is when you try not to think about something. It's the only thing that runs through your head.

I had nothing to worry about really, though. Alex bolted out of the car without cutting the engine or turning off the headlights. Oh, I thought, relieved. I'd been on enough fishing trips with my Dad and two brothers to guess that he probably had to take a leak. I figured that for, you know, like, at least two minutes. Until more than two minutes had gone by and he hadn't come back.

I turned off the heat. It was really too much by this point. I turned off the music, too, and put the window on my side down a little bit and listened.

Nothing.

Weird.

I glanced at the dashboard clock and took note of the time. Surely by now he'd been gone at least five minutes. I let five more minutes pass. Still, no Alex. I opened the car door. The dome light snapped on and the door started to make that annoying ding it makes when the keys are in the ignition. I decided to leave the door open. Just my luck, I'd accidentally lock Alex's keys in and then we'd really have a problem. I took note of the time again and decided that if I didn't find him in like, five minutes, I'd start screaming his name. If he didn't turn up in a minute or two after that, I wasn't sure what I'd do next. Maybe drive his car back to civilization and see if someone could help me find him. Or maybe call the police. Or call Dad and ask him whether I should call the police or not. Of course, I wasn't wild about the idea of telling Dad that I was at the lookout point with some guy. It would be different once Dad saw him. Then he'd understand how I couldn't possibly be doing anything bad… but his first reaction was going to be very, very bad.

Whatever. Time was passing and I wasn't calling for Alex yet. I got out of the car carefully and opened the door wide so it wouldn't swing shut and lock me out, just in case the door locks worked automatically, even though I totally doubted it.

"Alex?" I called. Or, tried to. It came out like a whisper. I cleared my throat to try again as I stepped forward.

But I didn't manage to say anything because I startled. I'd stepped on and nearly tripped in something soft and thick. When I reached down to see what it was, I found Alex's Red Death coat, lying on the ground. I picked it up by the collar and took it with me as I moved closer to where I thought he was.

I say where I _thought_ he was, because I couldn't be sure. It was dark. Really dark. I waited for a few minutes for my eyes to adjust, but the glare from the headlights seemed to keep my eyes in light-mode without doing much for helping me actually see in front of me. I debated whether to go back and cut the lights on the car or just yell for Alex a couple of times. In the end I did neither. I decided it was too damn cold to stand around in my flimsy costume in the cold air. I trotted back to the car hugging myself. I resisted the urge to put the Red Death jacket on.

It felt like forever, but it probably wasn't too long before Alex came huffing back to the car. He stepped into the headlights and I noticed it shirt was mis-buttoned as though he'd dressed hastily. I wondered if he'd had it wrong all night or whether he'd just had his shirt off, and then I wished I hadn't had that thought.

Alex collapsed into the drivers seat and didn't close his door. He pulled his long thin hair up in one hand and fanned himself with the other like it was warm even though it was definitely cold. I forced myself to remember that he was carrying a lot more insulation around than I was and wondered how I could have forgotten that in the first place.

"Sorry," he said breathlessly as he put the car in gear without closing the door. "Why don't you wear the jacket?" He glanced at me before closing the door. "Your lips are blue you know," he added.

I surrendered and shrugged into the thing. It certainly _was_ very warm.

Alex mashed the accelerator and swirved back onto the main road a little faster than I would have considered normal. At the crest of the hill be braked hard and turned left. The Grand Prix coasted into a parking spot at the corner store. He got out of the car slowly and started toward the store. I considered going along but didn't want to walk into the store in my costume. Alex was still half in costume and I admit I did worry for a second whether someone inside would make a mean comment. Which, I thought, might have occurred to him, too. Why else did he stop and sit on the hood instead of going inside?

When he didn't make a move to go inside or come back to the car, I got out. I was just going to have to walk in with him, like it or not.

"Come on," I said. "We going in?"

He didn't respond. And he didn't look normal. No, I mean, not even normal for Alex.

"Umm… Alex? Why'd we stop here?"

"…get something to drink," he suggested. His voice was kinda faint. I didn't like it one bit.

"Sure," I said all fakey normal-like. "Whatdaya want? Pepsi, Mountain Dew….?"

"Jus' water," I think he said.

Um… okay. I took two steps toward the door and remembered—no purse. We'd left in such a hurry I hadn't gotten anything from my locker or from my car. My purse was in one of those places. I couldn't even remember which at first. Then I remembered: purse in the trunk of the car, keys to the car in my locker. My heart started a panicky pounding before I even realized why. If the school was locked up and my keys were in my locker, I couldn't get into my car, couldn't get my purse, and couldn't drive home. _Damn! _What time was it, anyway? We'd left early, so maybe the dance was just now ending, or maybe not even over yet. So, first, this water thing, then to get my purse, keys, and car back.

"Um," I started. "I uh… I don't have my purse, so…." I pointed at the door and pantomimed something I hoped looked like 'I can't buy you anything.'

He didn't say anything, just nodded a little.

I had to stop and look at him then, because something totally wasn't right.

"Alex?"

"I got it," he said. "My wallet's in the car. Jus' gimme a minute." Long pause while my heart rate picked up yet again. "I don't feel so good."

"Well, shit, it's cold as hell out here." I was cussing more than normal, don't know why. Sometimes I catch myself doing whatever the people I"m with do, or talking how they talk, but that couldn't be it because Alex doesn't cuss at all as far as I can tell. "Let's get back inside and get you warmed up," I managed without a single dirty word. But I heard myself and noticed it sounded like I actually gave a shit what happened to the guy. Which, I guess I did. When the hell had _that_ happened?

"Worst thing I could do," he told me. But he opened the car door anyway and rummaged around in the dash to produce a black leather wallet and handed me a couple of crumpled bills.

"Water?" I confirmed.

"Couple of them?" He looked positively pathetic.

"Yeah." I bumbled into the store tripping all over my long white dress and bought four bottles of water, one of which I dropped on the way out. I stepped on my dress again as I picked it up and almost landed on my face. Graceful, I chastised myself sarcastically as I went back out the door.

I caught sight of my reflection in the door as I exited. A pale ghost wearing Red Death's discarded jacket. Death himself leaned against the old car outside in a white long-sleeved shirt and red pants and looked creepier with that faded expression than he had in the horrible mask. Well, weren't we a pair!

"Water!" I called cheerfully, because I couldn't think of a single intelligent thing to say.

He said nothing, just took the first bottle, drained it and handed me the empty. Our hands brushed briefly and I noticed that his were hot and dry.

"Um, you okay?" I said. Fever? I wondered.

"Yeah." He smiled for the first time in forever. "Better," he said. "Don't worry."

I opened my mouth to say "I wasn't worried," then decided to shut the hell up instead. I forced myself to look at him, and I let myself think the worried thought he'd expected me to have. "What's wrong?" suddenly popped out of my mouth in an anxious tone. I felt very peculiar all a sudden. I reached toward him and almost touched his hair. I pulled my hand back when I realized how weird I was being.

"Nothing." He leaned back and closed his eyes. "I just needed to cool down."

If anyone else had said that to me, I'd have either laughed or slapped him depending on his tone. But it was Alex. So I just stood there.

"You get inside," he told me. "You're freezing."

Yes, I was freezing, which left me perplexed as to why he needed to cool down. But I got inside without asking impossible questions. To my surprise, he got in too.

"Can we go back to the dance?" I asked

He looked at me with this shocked look on his face. I didn't think about what that look might have meant until later.

"No, like, I I left my car keys in my locker, and my car is at the school."

He looked deflated. "Christine, the dance ended a while ago."

Shit. "You sure?"

"Pretty much."

He drove me there anyway to make sure. The parking lot was dark, and everyone was gone. Damn.

I'm really sorry, Christine," Alex apologized. "I didn't realize you didn't have your keys. I didn't think about it. I should have seen you didn't have your purse, and I know there aren't any pockets in that. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry..." I interrupted twice to say "Don't worry about it," but he just went on and then eventually exploded into, "I'm so stupid! Stupid, stupid, stupid!" punctuating it the first three times with a palm slam against the wheel and the final one with a head slam to the headrest.

"Jeez, Alex, it's okay!" I managed. "My brother can bring me over in the morning with the second set of car keys. Or my dad. Don't worry about it."

"You live with your dad?" He seemed surprised.

"Um, yeah. And my mom. Why?"

"But you said your dad would drive you over."

Shrug. Actually I had said my brother first, but who cared who drove me over? "I dunno," told him. I wanted to keep talking so he didn't get upset again. "My mom's not around that much. And Dad and I are really close."

He was calmer now but glanced at me as he drove. "I figured that," he said.

Why would he figure that?

But I didn't ask.

I was too weirded out by the fact that Alex knew exactly where I lived.

"Thanks for the ride," I mumbled. "See you at school!" I didn't invite him in and I didn't ask him to wait until I'd made sure Dad was awake to let me in. I just ran up the front steps as fast as I could.

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Reviews, please?


	22. Chapter 22

Quick Author's Note: Hello! I'm back! It's been just under a month. I'm sorry for the wait, but at least I'm not skipping months anymore. Here's a short chapter for you. Hope you enjoy.

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I slept so late.

And when I got up, I padded down the stairs in my gag pajamas. Yeah, gag. Like gag gift. Not gag, they're awful, although they are pretty goofy looking. Trent got them for me at Christmas. They're like those ones you get for kids. With the feet in them. It was a joke when he got them, and I never planned to wear them, but I was so flipping cold after driving home with Alex that I pulled them out and cut the tags off.

I had forgotten how fun footed pajamas are, but apparently it's the same as riding a bike. As soon as I hit the bottom of the stairs where the carpet turns to tile I remembered to shuffle instead of step, and when I reached the den I slid up to the couch and dropped onto it.

Dad was watching Star Trek on G4. I don't think I even bothered to roll my eyes. I grabbed one of the blankets Mom always leaves lying around in the winter time and pulled it over me. Dad said something in the way of a greeting and I grunted back. He didn't start a conversation because his show was on; I didn't start one because I was still mostly asleep. I stared at the screen without really trying to figure out the plot. I didn't even recognize any of the characters. Where was the guy with the ears?

I was warm and sleepy under the blanket and let my eyes go out of focus. The TV was a dull drone, Dad a dim form on the couch.

A loud sound startled me awake and I jumped about a mile. The _doorbell_?

Dad ignored it.

Mom answered it using her door voice, which, I noticed, is remarkably similar to her fake phone voice. Always amazed me how parents could do that. "You are grounded for a month, do you hear me? And you're lucky I don't make it longer, missy, because you have been so disrespectful—Hello? Oh, hi Jan. Oh, just fabulous, how're you?" So fake. My mind wandered to whether or not Dad has a fake phone voice or a fake door voice, or any different types of voices at all. Seems to me he uses that same even tone almost all the time. I can tell whether I'm in trouble or not by the shape of his eyes more than the tone of his voice, which is really inconvenient when he calls me on the phone.

"Christine!" Mom had switched to her hasty-and-almost-embarrassed whisper.

"Huh?"

"Get into the bathroom and I'll bring you some clothes."

"What? Why?"

"There is someone _here_ to _see_ you!"

Someone? Oh god. Alex. (Eyeroll)

(Shrug.) "Meh."

"Christine." Slightly warning but without any real serious threat.

"I'll go upstairs and change in a minute."

Harsh whisper, closer to my ear. "He's standing right in the foyer. You can't go up the stairs!"

Jeez, mother! (Shrug.) "What ev. I'm not changing just because some stupid guy expects me to have already been awake at—" I squinted at the clock. My eyes were still bleary. Whatever time it was. Who cares. Alex, my stupid stalker. I should've told Dad that he creepily knew where we lived without asking me. I sighed and yawned a stretched.

Mom rolled her eyes and walked away from me.

"She's sitting in the family room with her dad," she said sweetly. Doesn't she even screen who comes to see me? Didn't she think it was the least bit weird that some big heavy dude she's never seen before is coming asking after me?

I turned my eyes back to the television and pretended to be interested. Never mind that I wouldn't be that convincing pretending I was so engrossed in the show I didn't know he was here since my mother had just announced his presence; I was going to try anyway. Maybe he'd decide he was interrupting something and leave. Of course, it's totally like Alex to be all into something like Star Trek, I bet. Whatever. It was my only shot, so I tried it. I watched the action intently. I even started to say, "Hey, Dad—" which I intended to follow with, "Who is the guy they're keeping behind the force field or whatever," but I got interrupted.

"Hey, Chris."

I jumped about a foot, I'm sure.

Ryan leaned in the doorway.

But only for like a second. He sauntered across the room to the other couch. "Hey, sir," he greeted Dad with a handshake.

Dad said something like, "Hey, Ryan, how's it going?" and suddenly Ryan was on the couch next to him and glancing back and forth between me and the television as he tried to pay attention to both things at once.

I felt very conspicuous in my pink furry bunny pajamas with the feet suddenly, but I couldn't figure out a way to get up and bolt from the room without calling still more attention to myself. Ugh.

Ryan waited until the commercial to turn completely toward me and say, "So where did you disappear to last night, Chris?"

I shrugged. After a long pause I shrugged and said, "Home."

"Home? Well, obviously, since you're here. But before that, Chris. I looked everywhere for you, and you had simply disappeared."

"It was more walking away than actually vanishing into thin air, you might have noticed." I remembered how exactly I had walked away.

The commercial break ended and Dad un-muted the TV.

Next commercial Ryan started in again. "I meant after that, Chris. You weren't at the dance anymore. But you weren't gone. Your car was still in the parking lot. Where _were_ you? Who did you leave with?"

"What are you, my jealous boyfriend? In case you haven't noticed, Ryan, I don't have a boyfriend. Maybe I don't even want one. No guy gets to ask me where I've been!" I noticed Dad out of the corner of my eye and gestured in his direction. "Except him! Obviously."

Ryan shifted a quarter-turn on the couch to glance at Dad. "Well, this concerns him, too. Does your father know you were out riding around in cars with boys last night when you were supposed to be at the dance? Did you tell him you've been skipping class and secretly meeting some guy in the basement?" Dad's eyes widened a bit. I don't think Ryan noticed, but I sure did. Ryan, meanwhile, was caught up in his complete betrayal of me. He turned all the way to face Dad. "It must be something bad if she's keeping it a secret, don't you think? I mean, it could be something dangerous. This guy could be on drugs or in a gang…."

"In a gang?" Dad burst out. I'm not sure if he was playing along or seriously concerned. "Christine, who did you say it was who drove you home last night?"

"I didn't, Dad, but I'll tell you the whole story later. Including why I couldn't stay there with Ryan!" I shot Ryan my most venomous look.

"You know, one of the reasons you have your own car is that I don't want you riding with strangers," Dad started in acting all dad-ish.

"And I wasn't. I would never. I didn't."

"We did have an agreement."

"Dad, seriously. Do we have to talk about this in front of Ryan?"

"She agreed to go to the dance with me, sir, but she spent more of her time away from me than with me."

"You were too busy insulting—" Whoops! I almost said his name! "… insulting that… that poor fat guy… to spend any time with me!"

"Don't pretend this is about the loser, Chrissy. I know who you were really with."

"Oh really?" I folded my arms and glared at him, dolefully aware that I was still in fuzzy pink bunny pajamas with feet. "Who?"

"A guy named Alex," he shot back.

I had already opened my mouth to say "No!" but I shut it quickly. Alex? How did he know about Alex? I didn't think anyone had noticed! "You don't know anything!" I yelled.

"Did you see the look on her face, sir?" Ryan had stood and was motion at me to Dad.

Dad was studying me carefully. Ryan looked about to cry.

"You're crazy!" I blurted out at him. "He's complete and totally crazy, Dad," I added. "So… crazy!"

Ryan shook his head hard and snorted. "I must be. I'd have to be crazy to be so crazy about you."

Dad's look softened. He gave me a don't-be-mean-to-the-boy look. I rolled my eyes.

Ryan stopped shaking his head and gave me a long look. "Just, text me at least sometime, Chris," he said. "I texted you to come back last night. When you didn't answer, I figured you were mad, but I texted and texted that I was sorry, and you didn't write back. Do you hate me that much, or did you forget to charge your phone? Don't answer that. Just… call me sometime or something."

He hurried out the door. I didn't run after him.

"So, how exactly did you get home without your car, Chrissy?" Dad asked me. His voice was serious, but his sparkling dancing eyes gave away his playfulness.

I remembered suddenly that my phone was in my car.

* * *

Okay, I'm trying very hard to update more often, especially as so many of you have left kind and enocouraging reviews. I'm sorry we're only at about once a month, but I promise you I'm almost caught up at work, and then you'll get more.


	23. Chapter 23

Note: Okay... I'm trying to be better about updating... here's a new little chapter for you!

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Dad totally understood. I mean, I guess not 100% completely and totally, because parents never quite get everything, but he got it way more than most people's dads and even some moms would have. He gave me the whole Ryans-family-are-good-people-and-even-if-you-don't-like-him-you-always-need-to-be-polite lecture, but at the word polite I exploded about how Ryan wasn't polite the night before at all and told him everything that was said about Alex. Dad stiffened at the Alex story, and for a second I thought he would tell me Alex was bad news and stay away from him and all that, but instead he go very quiet for a while and when he finally said anything, his voice was really, really soft.

"That the boy I saw you with two nights ago out front of the school?"

The night he asked me. "Yeah." The way I said it was the perfect illustration of the verb muttered, but that's a middle school word, not a high school one, and I was never good at illustrating verbs anyway.

Dad just nodded without saying anything. Then, as the Star Trek theme played and the credits scrolled by, he stood and fished his keys from his jeans pocket. "Let's go get your car, Chrissy," he told me. He mussed up my hair with a big palm.

I giggled and pointed out that I had to change. He said why bothered, but I changed anyway. My luck, I'd lose dad on the highway and then run out of gas and have to walk in footed pajamas and the whole track team would jog by or something. My heart actually pounded heavier at the thought, and I ran upstairs to change.

"So what makes Ryan think this pal of yours is in a gang?" Dad mused as the steering wheel spun through his hands after the turn out of our driveway.

"He's stupid," I returned.

"Chris." Warning tone, but not that serious. Like he knew I wasn't going to listen anyway. Like he said it just because he's a parent so he has to.

"I seriously have no better guesses," I tried. "Alex is like, the farthest thing from a gang member I know." Besides, a gang implied a group of people accepted you, right? "I don't think he has any friends," I said. It wasn't true. He had one, or at least he thought he did. Me. I groaned. What a mess I was in now.

Only a few minutes later Dad coasted to a stop beside my car in the deserted school parking lot.

"Thanks, Daddy!" I told him as I slammed the door to his car. I settled into mine quickly and found my phone. The battery was dead, so I jammed it into my pocket, revved the engine and punched the gas. Dad tooted the horn and me and made a slow-the-hell-down-while-I'm-watching-you gesture. I drove carefully and politely all the way home. I even managed to get into my parking space without squealing or slamming on the break. That was as much self-restraint as I had, though. I bounded up the stairs and plugged the phone into the computer to charge. Then I sat there and watched it and tapped the screen repeatedly saying "come on, come on, come on" even though I know it takes about three minutes to get enough juice to turn itself on.

After a minute or two I got distracted and reached for the mouse to log onto the Internet. The phone's first "bong" caught me off guard and I jumped. This was followed by buzz, bong, bong, bong, buzz, ding and then more bongs than I could count.

Bong is the best way I can think of to describe the tone for a text message. There seemed to be the most of those, so I checked those first.

Ryan: Hey.

Ryan: cmon chris tlk 2 me

Ryan: im sry

Ryan: chris? i said im sorry.

Ryan: r u rly that mad at me abt this?

Ryan: fine b that way i dont need to put up with this from u

Ryan: i didnt mean that im sry pls tlk to me

Ryan: wut do u want me to do, chris?

Ryan: where r u? lets talk

Ryan: i no ur still here i saw ur car

Savannah: chrissy, ryan is freaking out where the hell are you?

Ryan: ill do n e thing

Savannah: omg, im gonna call 911 no one nos where u r and its late

Savannah: i started to call ur parents but i didnt want to get u in trouble pls call me i won't tell ryan. promise

Ryan: im going home now ur car is still here but i give up on finding you

Savannah: u better call me and tell me wuts up

Wow. Seriously? All that went on while I was in the boiler room? Or out at the lookout point? Or maybe while I was at the corner store?

I sent Savannah a text.

Chris: im fine stop being so paranoid my phone battery died jeez!

I got back from her:

Savannah: OMG!

Then the phone rang and it was her. I told her Ryan and I had a big fight and I called my dad to come get me, that's why I left my car. She said "Oh my god, did he try something with you on the first date?"

I told her I had to go my mother wanted to borrow my cell and bye. She was still talking when I hit the call end button.

Two emails from Ryan saying the same crap. The first one was all well-fine-be-that-way and the second one was I'm-sorry-I-didn't-mean-it-I'm-a-jerk. I replied to the second one with a one-line response that implied I'd forgive him someday.

There was a text from Alex thanking me for a lovely evening telling me that he had had a splendid time.

I should have known right then that something was really dreadfully wrong. After all, who do you know that uses the word splendid? Honestly, what guy says splendid?

I tried to mess around on FaceBook, but everyone from school was on, and I didn't want to think about them.

Trent was in his room. He'd switched from Call of Duty to World of Warcraft. He stayed there most of the day. I sat and watched him for a couple of hours. Seems he's more addicted to this than he ever was with Call of Duty. Weird.

Sunday was more of the same boring mess. Dad and I watched TV all day. Mom actually joined us part of the day, too. It was nice, if a little, well, boring.

Monday morning at school Ryan was all hugs and smiles and telling me how hot I looked. When he thought I wasn't looking, I saw him twisting his class ring around his finger and watching me. I decided that I couldn't decide whether I was pleased or not but that there was really no harm in letting him hang around for a little while as long as he was nice. He didn't say a single word about Alex.

And Alex… well, that's the weirdest part. He visited me once. I was sneaking to the only soda machine that is ever turned on during the school day, the one over by the locker room, when he materialized out of nowhere, told me that in case I hadn't noticed this was the part where he was supposed to go away for two weeks, but he trusted that I knew what to do. I said "Um, okay," and he turned and hurried off.

A second later I realized what he'd said hadn't made any sense and I was curious as hell what it meant, so I screamed after him. He didn't return, so I ran down the hall after him. He's apparently amazingly fast for someone his size. I caught him, but barely.

"What? What two weeks? What are you talking about?"

It was about two weeks until the spring musical, but he wasn't in it, so shouldn't it be my call if I was too busy to talk?

He glanced down the hall then slipped into a door I'd never thought to enter.

"WTH," I asked him. "Are we allowed to be in here?"

"Are we allowed to be in the boiler room?"

I nodded. "A good point."

"This way."

By now I didn't question such things. He led me to the back of the janitors closet, then through what looked like an ordinary hole in the wall. At the end of the hall he went down some steps that would have made a great vocabulary flashcard for "foreboding."

Believe it or not, we came out behind the cafeteria in the kitchen. I yelped in surprise, and Alex led the way to the safety of the boiler room.

"You're insane!" I tried to say but more or less screeched once we were safely behind the closed door. "How the hell do you know where all this stuff is?"

He shrugged. "It's there, Christine. I just make use of it."

"Well, you're being creepy, okay? Stop it."

He looked as though I'd struck him.

"Sorry," I said grudgingly.

"I have gone out of my way not to be 'creepy' as you put it, this time around."

"Yeah, well, sorry to tell you this, but you haven't done a very good job of it."

He sighed heavily and looked sullen.

"Okay, maybe creepy's the wrong word," I tried to soften it.

"No, no, you're right. I've been creepy. Again. I meant not to be, though. I hope you might credit me for trying."

I shrugged. "It's not that hard not to be creepy, Alex. You could just, you know, go around like other guys and just talk to people. Forget all this sneaking around and hiding in basements and stuff, hey?"

He nodded and looked as though he might cry. "I haven't had much opportunity to go around like other guys, you may have noticed," he told me. "Although I suppose you would argue more so this time, perhaps."

I decided that there was something very spooky about the look in his eyes and his tone of voice. I decided I needed to get out of the boiler room as quickly as possible. But I couldn't think how to without upsetting him, so I said "What do you mean about this time, Alex."

He became weirder than ever. "Haven't you figured it out yet, Christine?"

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Request: Please review... especially now that we're FINALLY getting somewhere.


	24. Chapter 24

"Figured what out?"

"Christine, Christine," he said softly.

I got chills. "Figured _what_ out, Alex?" I said rubbing my arms to make the gooseflesh go away.

"I really thought you'd noticed it too, Christine. I think you have. You just think it's too incredible to be real. But deep down you know it is."

"It is _what_?"

"Real. True."

"_What's_ real, Alex?"

"That we're them."

I laughed. "We're who?" Then, before he could answer, my bones turned cold. I shivered. "Don't be silly," I tried to say. No sound came out.

"I tried to tell myself it wasn't true," Alex continued. "I told myself it was just my overactive imagination, like always. But you agreed to go to the masked ball with me. You even wore a domino."

_What?_ "Wore a what?"

"You were _supposed_ to be in black, you know. Raoul wore the white domino, remember?"

"Raul who?" There was a guy named Raul who had recently transferred in, actually, so it wasn't a totally stupid question. Raul's family was Cuban, and they'd just moved north from Florida. I only know this because I had a conversation with him one time in class about how awful the weather is here. It wasn't even snowing or anything. I told him if he thought this was bad, just wait until it actually gets bad. This is nothing. He didn't seem too pleased. But what did Raul…

Something clicked. My name is Christine. His name is Raul. Raoul? "Oh, Alex, don't be ridiculous! I only just met Raul, and it's just a name. It's not even spelled the same!"

"There was someone with you at the bal masque."

"What? Where?"

"At the masquerade ball."

"Mardi Gras?"

"Yes. There was someone with you in a black domino. A black hooded cape."

I started to shake my head. "Oh wait. Yeah. But his name's not Raul. It's Ryan."

"So that's his name."

"Yeah, but so what, Alex? He wasn't my date or anything. I've known him almost my whole life, Alex. We were friends when were—" I shut up all the sudden. Since we were kids. Yeah, that point wasn't going to help convince Alex that we had nothing to do with Christine and Erik. "Whatever. Yeah. He went to the stupid dance with me."

"And you left him there. You came to me."

"You're really being creepy, Alex."

"Do I have a choice, I wonder?"

"To be creepy or not? Yeah, I think you have a choice."

Alex squeezed through the narrow space and slid to the ground with his back against the wall. I followed and did the same to sit opposite him and waited for him to answer me.

"Would you say that Erik had a choice?"

I shrugged and sunk to the floor as well. "I don't know, Alex." With a face like a skull I guessed it would be really hard not to be creepy. "Maybe he didn't have a choice not to be creepy, but he certainly had other choices."

Alex appeared to think this over for a long time. Then he said "I'm not deliberately being creepy."

"Okay."

"But, Christine—" He stared at me intently. "It's been exactly a hundred years since the book was published. And it just so happens that this year happens to be the year that we're both in high school at the same time that it's the first year that the musical can be put on by high schools?"

I didn't think that proved anything. "Maybe," I said. "But what's a hundred years from when the book was written? What's that got to do with anything? It's not like it's exactly a hundred years from when it supposedly happened, which, I think, would mean more."

"That's a good point." Alex pulled a Bic pen out of his pocket and hastily wrote a note to himself on the palm of his right hand. It was the first time I noticed that he was left handed. "We're off by something like twenty-six years then." He scratched a math problem onto his right wrist. "How old are you? Sixteen?"

"Alex, stop!" I didn't mean to be loud, but I must have been. He dropped instantly and put the pen in his pocket.

"Sorry." He looked sheepish. "But look. What would you expect me to think after the past couple of months?" (Had it been that long?) "I mean, first of all, I never would have expected you to talk to me, ever. But you did. Then you get the lead in the musical, playing her."

"Then I talked to you. You got it backwards, Alex. I had the lead first. Then we talked for the first time. Remember?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. You like, saw my score, remember?"

He hesitated. "Oh yeah."

I hestitated too. I'd had the score, yes, but had I gotten the part already? Or was I just preparing for auditions? I couldn't remember. But it didn't matter. It couldn't possibly matter because _it was only a book_. "Alex, it's fiction. That guy made it all up. That's why he's an author."

"Look it up, Christine. Gaston Leroux was a journalist." He studied me for a few minutes. "Are you really reading it, Christine? He explained that it was all true."

"Yeah." I remembered reading that. I guess I had just forgotten. I shivered again and wrapped my arms around my knees. "Okay, so it's true," I agreed. "What makes you think it has anything to do with us?"

"Just think about it. It's like we've been reliving it these past couple months. You're playing the lead in the closest thing our school could have to an opera. And you're meeting me and talking to me secretly—" (He'd noticed? Oh, damn.) "—and at the bal masque, you went back and forth between Raoul and me. You didn't even let him escort you; you met him there. And you left with me."

I didn't have anything much to say back to that. Everything he'd said was completely true, so how was I supposed to argue with it? Even so, it was beyond far-fetched to consider that we were repeating the events of some hundred year book.

I didn't have to think up something to say, though, because Alex went on talking without a response.

"I did something different, though."

"Huh?"

"Every time I notice something that is exactly like the book, I do something different. Like, I think maybe the reason we have to do it over is to get it right, you know? So, whenever I get the chance, I do something different."

Crazy conversation. Crazy boy. Right after this the very next place I was going was Mr. Miller's office. Or Ms. Harmon's office. Yeah. Ms. Harmon. She was more likely to notice how crazy it was. Mr. Miller would probably think it was cute and point out how creative Alex must have been.

"Like what?" I said to cover my secret evil plan to turn him in.

"Like, I didn't bother to try to scare Raoul that night."

Thank god for that, I thought. The idea of Alex in his Red Death costume trying to scare Ryan and the track team boys was so absurd as to be laughable. Except I felt more like puking.

"I haven't done a single mean thing to Sheila, either," he added.

"Sheila? What's Sheila—" My own personal Carlotta! But _how did he know_? Had he been _watching_? _When? How?_

"I'll get it right this time, I promise," he told me. Vocabulary flashcard for "imploringly" if only I could get out my phone and snap a picture of the look on his face. "I'm the one who ruined everything last time."

I laughed. "There _is_ no last time," I said. I brushed "You _do_ have an overactive imagination."


	25. Chapter 25

Hi, everyone! Okay, I'm getting better with regular updates. We're never going to get back to that every day thing I did two years ago, but at least you're hearing from me more than once a month, at least. I hope you like this one.

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I had totally planned to go straight to the counseling office after that, but for some reason, I didn't. When the bell rang I checked my phone to see what time it was and how many classes I'd missed, calculated the next class period I needed to be in and hurried to Writing Elective with Ms. Kelley. Thank God! Axl is in that class with me.

"Hey Axl," I hissed across the table as soon as Ms. Kelly finished her mini-lesson on the difference between its and it's.

"Watch your language, Christine!"

"What?"

"What did you just call him?"

"Axl." I drew it out carefully. "Axe-el"

"Oh." Ms. Kelly looked sheepish. "I thought you said something else. Sorry." Ms. Kelly is cool like that. Not like other teachers, she actually admits when she's wrong.

Axl was doing that weird silent laugh he does.

"Come, on. Be serious. I've gotta ask you something."

He took a deep noisy breath. "Okay, okay, I'm serious. What?"

"Okay. Do you think it's like totally crazy if someone believes in reincarnation?"

He squinted at me, then blinked twice. "Um, no. Obviously."

"Obviously?"

"Bekkah's a Buddhist." He said it in that tone that implies "Duh," without saying it.

"Yeah, I forgot. But no, I mean like-" God, I almost said _regular people_. I shook my head, took a deep breath and started again. "Assuming someone is not a Buddhist. Would it be very odd for them to believe in reincarnation?"

He opened his mouth and I cut him off.

"Assuming they aren't Hindu or whatever else, either, Axl. I mean just someone like me."

He shrugged. "I don't see what's so strange about it. Early Gnostic Christians believed in reincarnation. It's probably only due to errors in translation that it's been rejected by mainstream modern Christianity. Hasidic Jews still believe in it, as do extreme Sh'ia Muslims. Not only that, but many Greek philosophers believed in it as well." He paused for a sip from his soda. Yeah. Ms. Kelly doesn't make a big deal if we have soda in writing elective. It's a great class. "So did the Druids. If you ask me, it's probably pretty weird that we _don't_ believe in it."

"So _you_ don't believe in it?" I asked him.

"I meant 'we' as in most Americans. Or 'we' modern western thinkers. Personally, I haven't decided yet. But I don't reject Bekkah's beliefs."

"Of course not. So..." I was confused again.

"Practically speaking, it's not like you'd remember who you were last time around anyway. So it's sort of a moot point."

"Mute point?"

"Moot, Christine, moot. Like, irrelevant."

Learn a new word every day, I guess. I vaguely wondered why it wasn't on the vocabulary list and decided it was because there was no way to illustrate it. All I could picture was a big, irrelevant cow saying "mooooot."

"So, do you believe in it or not?"

Axl sighed. "Maybe I do. But since I don't remember any past lives, it's not like it impacts me in a measurable way. And suppose I come back as someone else. I don't expect I'd remember being Scott this time around, either. So it's not of much value. Of course, there are those who claim to have memory of past events, but a lot of that is just paranormal bullshit—Sorry Ms. K.—unless they're a bodisatva, which I'm obviously not. So, you know." He paused for another long swing of soda. "I'm not particularly worried about it, you know?"

"Right. Yeah. I know. I mean, neither am I." Long uncomfortable pause. "At least, not usually." I shot a glance at Ms. Kelly. She didn't appear to be listening, but one could never tell. I dropped my voice a little lower. "What if someone told you they did remember a past life? Or like, maybe not remembered it but figured out who they had been?"

Axl made a face and thought about it. "I guess it'd depend on who the person was."

"I know someone like that."

He nodded and said nothing.

"He thinks he knows who I was, too."

Axl's mild curiosity seemed to intensify a little.

"He thinks we were involved with each other in a past life but it turned out wrong. He says maybe we're here to fix it this time around."

A grin broke across Axl's face. "That sounds like a line, Christine."

"No, seriously!"

"Well, it's a good line, isn't it?"

"No!" I thought about it a second. "Maybe—"

"If I'm ever single again, I'm definitely going to try that one," Scott said. He was fighting valiantly not to laugh at me.

I pretended not to notice. "I don't know. I didn't take it that way. If you knew who I meant—"

Axl nodded. "If you're sure Chrissy."

"I'm sure, Axl," I said. No _way_. Alex wasn't capable of a _line_.

He nodded wisely.

I left him alone after that to work on his story. I tried to write something of my own, but found I couldn't think about anything except that stupid novel so I started making lists.

Ways I am like Christine

1. I have blond hair.

2. I have blue eyes.

3. My name is Christine.

4. I sing.

Ways I am not like Christine

1. I am not Swedish. At least I don't think I am.

2. I do not live in France.

3. Both my parents are alive.

4. I am not that talented.

5. It is not 1800 and something.

I got stuck at this point. I could say "I am younger" but that didn't prove anything. Considering the whole reincarnation argument, the fact that it wasn't 1800 something didn't really matter. The point was—moot—as Axl said. I tried again to picture the flash card for moot and couldn't come up with anything but a cow. Knock Knock. Whose there? Irrelevant cow...Mooooooot.

For that matter I could add "I am a girl" and "I am young" to ways I am like Christine. It was too easy to come up with whatever you wanted. I started a new list. Ways I am like Lady Gaga and ways I am not. I came up with about the same number, so I started listing ways that Lady Gaga is like Christine and ways she is not. I decided that you could make yourself out to be almost anyone, therefore it wasn't any kind of serious proof of anything. I felt better after that.

I felt even better still when Alex didn't come around. I mean, not that I noticed his not coming around and actually thought 'Oh yeah, I feel better about this' or anything, but once he left me alone for a few days, I sort of forgot about the whole creepy thing for a while. Alex wasn't around for almost two weeks. I don't know where he went or what he was up to, but he was all the sudden absent from all the classes we had together. Maybe he was in he boiler room the whole time. I wouldn't know because I didn't go looking for him. I was too busy with Ryan, who had apparently decided that he had screwed up and needed to kiss my butt to make things better. For a couple of days it was just nice text messages saying how sorry he was about the dance and the morning after. Then it was stopping by and not telling dad anything messed up. Then he asked me to catch a movie with him on Friday night. I admit I wanted to. I really, really wanted to, but for some reason I just didn't. I decided I'd rather see him just at school for now. But during school I did my best to get back to normal. I went to practice when I needed to, and when I didn't, I went home. I stopped skipping classes. I stopped going to the boiler room. Ryan took the opportunity to hang all over me between every class, meet me at my locker and even carry by books in a totally-Grandma's-generation kind of way.

One day during lunch he confided to me that he'd been talking seriously with one of the military recruiters about ROTC. I shouldn't have been surprised. Ryan's dad is career military and it's pretty much always been a given that Ryan would at least consider following in his father's footsteps. It meant money for college, which is always a big deal. So like I said, I shouldn't have been surprised, and I wouldn't have been, if I hadn't made a connection I didn't want to make. I was listening and trying not to get especially freaked out when all the sudden Ryan grasped the handle of the boiler room door and said, "Hm. What's in here?"

"No! Don't do that!" I threw my weight against it and shoved it closed.

He regarded me with wide eyes for a few seconds then kept walking to class. About five paces down the hall, he burst out laughing. I pretended I wondered what the hell was wrong with him for laughing on top of what the hell was wrong with him for even thinking to open the boiler room door, but underneath that, I was obsessing over the fact that Ryan was talking about joining the navy and I had just replicated the scene where Christine drags Raoul away from the trap door. I checked the book to try to find a difference and instead noticed another similarity: Erik had left Christine alone for two full weeks and during that time, she spent her time with Raoul.

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Dun dun dun!

Okay... please review! I'm dying to hear your thoughts!


	26. Chapter 26

Author's Note: While life is still really, really busy, I have managed to work in a little bit of free time for myself every now and again to write something. I'm trying to post at least once weekly now, so here's your weekly installment involving Alex and Christine of Harrison High. I'm hoping to also post my next drabble in the Evaluation of Erik series, so check back for that in the next hour or so as well.

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Erik was working, the book said. Erik was working on his opera. Well, maybe it was an opera. I don't know. He was working on some masterpiece musical thing. He lived in an opera, so I'm going with it was an opera. Andrew Lloyd Webber said it was an opera, anyway. _Don Juan Triumphant_. Of course, Webber said a lot of things that turned out not to be in the book. Whatever. Erik left Christine alone for two weeks because he was working on something.

Alex, on the other hand, was suspended.

At first I figured Alex was just leaving me alone for two weeks because Erik left book-Christine alone for two weeks. It occurred to me that Alex would find something to do for two weeks that he figured was roughly equivalent to what Erik was doing for those two weeks, so maybe he was writing poetry or trying to compose songs or something. Then I remembered that Alex said he'd done something different. He said that _every_ time he noticed something the same, he did something different. Was it true? I thought about it. He talked to me the first time in class, face to face. That was different. Erik did that creepy hiding and talking through walls thing.

I reviewed our early conversations. _That's my favorite book,_ he'd said. That was a pretty normal thing to say, I guess, if it had been anyone other than him saying it, or maybe had he been saying it to anyone other than me. Why didn't he say it to someone other than me, though? He picked the blonde haired blue eyed girl named Christine? And there were four Christines, now, not all of them blond. Webber's Christine has brown hair anyway, so I was going to have to wear a wig. If he'd really wanted to be different, he'd have talked to one of the other girls playing Christine. Better still, he might have talked to someone who wasn't even in the stupid musical. No, he hadn't done something different _every_ time. After all, he'd asked me to the Mardi Gras dance, which he kept referring to as the masked ball. He obviously thought the dance counted as the modern reenactment.

Okay, so he didn't keep me prisoner someplace. I didn't have to go throwing a letter out the window of Alex's beat up old car in the hopes that Ryan would find it. I laughed at that thought, actually. Alex was way less creepier than Erik. I mean, he lived in a regular house with regular parents, I guess.

I stopped to wonder about Alex's parents. I'd never seen them. I think he said his dad wasn't around. He'd never even mentioned his mother that I could remember. I wondered if he lived with other family or something. He couldn't live on his own at our age, could he? The government wouldn't allow that, would they? Could he be in foster care?

,I'd have driven myself completely batty trying to figure out whether Alex was deliberately doing things differently or deliberately doing things the same, but then Alex turned up, temporarily, anyway. He'd been away a couple of days, maybe. Nothing unusual considering the chronic skipping problem most of the junior and senior classes have at our school.

Then there was that day in the social studies wing of the upstairs hallway.

I heard this sound. Something like you'd hear in a movie. A wild yell like no one ever makes in real life. A blur of green and yellow sailed across the hall and hit the wall with another sound, an _umph_, like all the air coming out of a body. Something huge and white hurled itself across the hall in the same direction. Suddenly everyone was there and all the sounds were drowned out with yelling and cheering. _Fight_ registered in my mind. It happens from time to time. The adults would have you believe it's the freaks against the jocks, but usually it's not. Usually it's jocks against jocks or freaks against freaks. Usually, it's two people I don't know. Usually, it's goofy underclassmen who haven't figured out yet that Harrison is strict as hell and you'll be suspended forever or even expelled.

I'll admit, I stopped to watch. I'm not alone in that. Everyone in the hallway stopped to watch. I'll also admit that I didn't see anything. I flinch a lot when there's a chance of something hitting me in the face. It's why I've never played on the volley ball team.

What I did manage to discern was that the white blur I saw second was Mr. Mason—this huge teacher who teaches ninth grade geography. When the slow motion effect of my brain turned off, I heard Mr. Mason yelling, "That's enough, that's enough, knock it off!" He reached in and wrapped his arms around something and hauled it back across the hall yelling, "It's over! It's over!"

I let my eyes drift across the hall. A vaguely familiar guy in what was left of a letterman jacket was leaning against the wall and everyone was gathering around him. "Are you okay?" and "Oh my god, you're bleeding," and all that. He _was_ bleeding, too, I think from his lip. A high-pitched shriek behind me turned out to be his girlfriend. She shoved me out of the way as she bounded towards him. I stepped on something green and slippery on the floor. "Oh, baby, look at your face," the girlfriend crooned. And then without even taking a breath she turned and yelled, "You fucking freak!" at the top of her lungs. She turned back to her man. I didn't. I followed where her gaze had been. Mr. Mason still struggled with some writhing, moaning beast, but he was making progress towards the other end of the hall. Mr. Smith was coming towards him at a run.

The bell rang.

Some of the crowd dissipated.

"That's enough!" Mr. Mason was still yelling at the kid in his arms, still thrashing to get free. "Stop, Alex!" he tried again as Mr. Smith reached him.

Mr. Smith reached around Alex's bulk as Mr. Mason let go and stepped to the side to face him. "It's over," Mr. Mason said. The kid raised his head enough for me to confirm that it was Alex, though I wouldn't necessarily have even recognized him if I hadn't heard his name. His hair was a wild mess about his head and shoulders. His teeth were bared like an animal's. His eyes were wide and strange. I've heard the term vacant used to describe eyes, but this was the first time I understood how it was possible. "It's over!" Mr. Mason said again. It seemed to register this time. Alex went mostly limp in Mr. Smith's grasp, but Mr. Smith did not let go. With Mr. Mason at his side with his hand on his shoulder, the two escorted him down the hallway.

I think I stood there with my mouth open a few seconds before I turned away. I stepped on something green and slippery. It was Alex's windbreaker. I rolled it into a tight ball and stuffed it into my backpack. I'd find a way to return it to him later.

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Please, please, please leave a review. It means the world to me. Also, I'm doing better to update about once a week, and I have the next portion almost ready already, so if a lot of people are all excited, I'll be more likely to post faster. Thanks in advance!


	27. Chapter 27

**Author's Note:** Poor Alex! Can you believe what happened last chapter? Poor guy can't seem to get a break, can he? So, since he's suspended, Alex doesn't appear in this chapter. I hope you guys can put up with Christine's whining drivel for a little bit longer...

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Suspended. The word spread through the junior class as fast as all good gossip always does.

"Suspended! Damn, he ought be expelled. Bill didn't do shit to him!"

"Oh my god, that guy is so crazy. Do you remember that time back in elementary?" I tried to listen. I'd moved here in seventh grade, so an elementary Alex was an all new idea to me. Unfortunately, that snippet of conversation was going by me in the hall, and I couldn't backpedal fast enough to figure out whose conversation it was.

In English III I heard a bit about Alex's windbreaker.

"What happened to it afterwards?"

"I don't know. Probably Mr. Smith has it."

"Yeah, maybe he burned it. Did you see what was underneath?"

"Oh my gosh, is it contagious, do you think?"

"Ha. No, he's just filthy."

"No, seriously, he's got some disorder. You shouldn't talk about that part."

"Okay, but still."

"Yeah, he's weird no matter what."

"Totally."

My skin started to crawl at the word contagious. Could they be right? Was I putting myself in some danger carrying a contaminated jacket around? And yet, I'd been hanging out with Alex for literally _weeks_. Then again, he'd never touched me. I thought about it. At first I hadn't noticed. Later I'd been glad. Next I'd thought he was doing it on purpose to be like Erik, but now I really wondered. Maybe there was some real reason.

But no, that wasn't entirely true. I had touched him that one day. Only his hand. Until now I could have consoled myself with the fact that his hand was the exact opposite of Leroux's description of Erik, but now similarity or difference from Erik meant nothing. I inspected my own hands. Nope. Nothing. Must just be kids being mean. Right? I mean, I hoped….

In Economics I heard just the tinest bit about what happened.

"But did you _hear_ him?"

"Oh my god, yeah. Like some kind of animal!"

"It's because Bill grabbed his sleeve, that's what."

"Come on, seriously? That's no big deal."

"I don't know. Maybe it's because he didn't want anyone to see."

"Yeah, but still. He could have just pulled his arm away, right? No reason to act like some kind of monster or something. He's crazy, that's what."

"Crazy bastard. No question."

"Yeah, but it started before that."

"Before what?"

"It didn't start in the hall. It was going on during class. They were throwing little pieces of paper in his hair."

"Yeah, but that happens every day. He only went crazy when they touched his jacket."

"What the… I'm telling you, he _is_ crazy, man. Like, for real for real crazy. They shouldn't let people like that in school. Don't they have places for people like him? Lock him up or something."

"Dude, it wasn't the paper in his hair. This is all about the other day in the cafeteria."

"Oh, come on. That was no big deal."

Mean. They were just plain mean. I sat there and listened to the whole class, some of them my friends, some of them people I didn't know too well, but all of them classmates I'd known since seventh grade. I couldn't say anything either way. I felt like I didn't know them. And of course, I had a secret. In the deepest recesses of my backpack, I carried the offending jacket.

I said nothing, and because I said nothing, I was invisible. I decided I didn't mind being invisible when I realized the way to make myself known—to make myself part of the in-crowd again—would have been to reveal the jacket and let them do whatever they wanted with it.

I pictured them grabbing it from my hands and cheering like the wild mobs you see on those movies Mrs. Lucas showed us about the Salem witch trials. They'd tear it into pieces, I thought, then take what was left and throw it onto a huge fire, like the homecoming bonfire.

But _why_ was what bugged me. He was totally harmless. Why not just leave him alone? I mean, I'm not saying they had to be his friend or anything. But why not just leave him _alone?_ Who would that have hurt?

I heard Mrs. Trudell tell Mr. Roberts, "I knew he was one of the dangerous ones. You can just tell by looking at him. That hair and the way he talks. He's one of those kids that's violent. They'd better watch what they're doing. He's liable to turn out like those boys at Columbine."

So, I was like _five_ when that shit happened out there, but it's not like there's anyone in the world who hasn't at least heard about it. I tried to picture Alex in a trench coat with a machine gun. The image just didn't work. No way.

I went to Mr. Miller. I didn't get anywhere, though. Whereas last time Mr. Miller was all "you do something about it, Christine" now he was all "the administration has to intervene when these things happen." I told him, you know, like, Alex wasn't doing anything wrong, really. Everyone picks on him, you know? I think he was just reacting, and if you guys'd do something about everyone bothering him, Alex would be totally harmless. Mr. Miller blew it, though. He had his chance to be a hero, but instead he gave me this lecture about how no matter what anyone does to you, it doesn't give you the right to behave badly. He even dragged Jesus into it and told me about turning the other cheek. Isn't there some law that says he can't tell me about religion or something?

I left completely frustrated. What I got out of it was that when Ben does something wrong, Alex should practice patience and tolerance and focus on school and remember that stuff that doesn't kill us makes us stronger. When Alex does something wrong, though, the school has to take action because someone could get hurt. Hadn't someone already gotten hurt? Two words: not. fair.

Of course I understood that throwing paper pieces and saying rotten things isn't the same as grabbing a guy and slamming him into a wall, but I know Alex, and he's not a violent guy.

Or rather, I knew Alex. And he wasn't a violent guy. Was he?

I remembered him punching the wall in the boiler room on dance night. Twice. He was sure mad enough to get physical then. But he'd hit _the wall_. Not Ben. Not _me_. I tried to think of a time…. All I could remember was going to the art museum and standing under the little dome of constellations and singing with him. _Hey Mr. Tally-man, tally me bananas_… Hardly a guy you'd expect to hurt someone. _Daylight come and me wan' go home_. Come to think of it _I_ wanted to go home. I couldn't think of a way to pull that off without just skipping out, and without Alex, I wasn't sure I could get away with that. How did he get away with it, anyway?

I couldn't figure it out, so I decided to wait until the end of the day. I finegaled my way out of practice with a cock and bull story that I know the teachers really didn't believe but accepted in exchange for my promise that this was the last time ever I would miss I promised, no matter what.

While I waited, I thought about Alex. I sat and thought about him for a long time. How he was such a sweet and gentle guy, how politely he always spoke to me, how he was such a gentleman like most parents want their kids to be.

Wasn't he? I mean, how did I know? What did I really know about him? Basically, just that he was a guy that everyone made fun of. He's a big dorky guy. Just a guy who happens to have an amazing singing voice that doesn't go with the rest of him at all. He was a guy with an old beat up car… a really obese guy with mis-matched skin and a tendency to wear a coat indoors and even when it's warm. Mostly, he was a guy obsessed with a certain character from a certain book.

Okay, I admit I really knew just about _nothing_ about him. But then, I knew nothing about anyone, really. I guess I thought I knew the most about Ryan, because my parents know his parents. But I didn't really know him at all. I mean, I can name is favorite football team and his favorite color, but then, I know Alex's favorite book. Is any of that really knowing a person?

It got me wondering if anyone out there really knew _me_ at all. Or if _I_ knew me at all. It got scary, so I tried to stop thinking about it.

I got myself a pass to the office from Mr. Crovak. The office aide in the attendance office was the French Club girl with the long dark silky hair. I waved at her. She recognized me but didn't react immediately. When she came over to ask if she could help me, I moved to the far end of the counter and dropped my voice low.

"Did you hear what happened to Alex?" I said.

She glanced over her shoulder.

I took a chance they might be friends. "It was pretty awful. Bill tore his coat off of him in the middle of the hallway. Alex just completely lost it."

She nodded. "I saw him."

"They're saying he got suspended. Is it true?"

She glanced over her shoulder again. "Suspended, expelled, I don't know. Mr. Smith called his parents. They sent him home." She dropped her voice lower. "It's not decided yet. They hold a meeting or a hearing or something."

"Right." I don't know if I knew that or guessed it or anything. It felt like new information, but I pretended not to be surprised. I made a note to figure out whether it was possible to be at such a hearing. But what I could say? I saw the whole thing? I didn't. Truth is, I hadn't seen anything except Alex drive that guy right into the wall and have to be hauled away by Mr. Mason. I really didn't have anything I could say about that day that would help Alex at all. But what about if I showed up and told them about Ben in the cafeteria? What if I told them about how that guy Bill had taken Alex's jacket? And how people had been throwing stuff at him every day all year in class and apparently the teacher wasn't noticing or doing anything about it? I mean, when things are so bad a kid has to eat lunch in the bathroom or in the boiler room, someone should _do_ something, right? But could I show up and mention the boiler room? That was Alex's secret. If I told, I was betraying Alex. More importantly, if I told, I'd be getting him in more trouble, not less. I could just imagine his reaction. _Thanks, Christine. They were only going to suspend me, but now I'm expelled. You could have just not talked to me, you know. That would have been easier._ Oh well. It's the thought that counts, right?

"I need his address."

"Are you kidding? I'm not allowed to give that out!"

I made a face at her. "I have his jacket." I waited. "What do you think I should do with it? I don't have his phone number."

She sighed heavily. "I don't know," she said. She turned and walked away. I didn't leave. I figured there was at least a tiny chance that she was up to something. Turned out I was right; she came by a few minutes later with a Post-It note with an address scribbled on it. "I have no idea where you got that," she said as she thrust it into my hand.

I whispered thanks and put it in my pocket. When the last bell rang, I headed straight to 422 Valley View.

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**End note and Shameless Begging for Reviews:** Okay, now we're getting somewhere! Next chapter almost ready to go as well because I started writing out of order. New chapter soon! In the meantime, please don't forget to review. I'd love to know if I've crossed the threshold to "predictable" or whether I've still got you guessing.


	28. Chapter 28

Another chapter. I don't really have anything to say to introduce it, so here it is!

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I pulled up to the address on the Post-It note and double checked. Was this the right house? Somehow, I'd figured Alex for poor what with his wearing almost the exact same thing every day, always looking sort of disheveled, and driving the Beast. This house was, well, wow. I'm not even sure how to describe it. It was brick, for starters. Dark red brick, but not all a uniform shade. The house was brick all the way to the roof, unlike ours which is brick on bottom and siding on top. It had this grand entrance with a huge two-story tall arch of matching brick, and I noticed shining through the second-story window a huge chandelier that to me seemed worthy of the setting of the novel that had gotten me into this whole mess in the first place. No, it wasn't the right house, I thought. I looked at the address again. There really was no mistaking it, though. It's not that big a town. We don't have a lot of streets with similar names or anything. I turned off my car and got out slowly. I considered getting back in and driving off. The Beast wasn't parked outside, so either it wasn't the right house or else Alex wasn't home.

I put the Post-It note in my pocket, slipped my backpack onto my shoulders, and walked up the front walk anyway. They'd tell me it wasn't the right house, and I'd go home telling myself that I'd tried and it wasn't my fault. Or else someone would answer the door and say that Alex wasn't home. They'd take his nasty windbreaker from me, and I wouldn't have to say anything to him. Problem solved. But my stomach did flipflops, reminding me that I could say no big deal all I wanted, I wasn't buying it.

I pushed the button for the doorbell. That Westminster thing rang out with deeper tones and more vibration than my mother's living room clock has ever been able to muster. While I listened to the chimes I inspected the front door. It was heavy, dark wood with a window with leaded glass that threw prisms at me when I tried to peek through.

A woman wearing nicely fitted white slacks and a clingy but stylish pink blouse came toward the door; I backed away from my peeking place and tried to stand normally without looking too casual. I smoothed my hair down, then fluffed it back up again.

The woman opened the door. She had shoulder-length blond hair and was overly made up without looking ridiculous. In fact, she looked rather like she'd just stepped off a runway somewhere. I noticed how her earrings and necklace matched. I glanced down rather than meet her eyes and noted that her ring matched too and her nails were not only perfectly manicured but the color exactly matched her blouse. _Wow_.

"Sorry" she said. "Maid's day off. Can I help you?"

I was absolutely certain I had the wrong house by this point, but there wasn't much else I could say. I was a little old to be selling Girl Scout Cookies, and besides I didn't have an order form or anything. Maybe a school fundraiser? Cheerleading? Drama? But the truth fell out of my mouth easily before I could stop it.

"I um… I was looking for this guy Alex. From my school. He uh… we're friends and um…" boy, that sounded weird out loud. I shifted my backpack off my shoulder and half-unzipped it. "He left his jacket," I mumbled. I rummaged in my backpack trying to get hold of an end of it. I'd stuffed it so deeply to avoid anyone's seeing it that it was not exactly easy to pull back out.

Blond-lady caught sight of the slick green surface without my having to withdraw it, though. I stopped trying to pull it out; the look on her face weirded me out for a second. First she looked sort of angry or something, then she put on a fake smile for a few seconds and scrutinized my face. Then she lit up. "Come in!" she said, opening the door wide and backing out of the way. "I'll just go get him," and she turned from the door and yelled "Alex!" before she'd even taken a step away.

The foyer opened into a sunken living room on the right side and a wide hallway straight ahead. A stairway just to the left went up a few steps then turned and went up, up, up some more. Blond-lady trotted up the steps, which I noticed were darkly stained wood with a carpet runner down the center complete with those brass step-things that we don't have at our place. Matter of fact, the whole place was full of things we don't have at our place. The chandelier I saw from the outside hung over the stair landing, and it was even more impressive from directly below. The two steps into the sunken living room were the same dark-stained, highly-polished wood. A huge oriental rug marked a sitting area, and I could tell without stepping on it that it was overly thick and lush. The far wall of the living room was covered with old-looking books all the way to the height of the ceiling, and there was a ladder so you could reach the top shelf. A wooden spiral staircase went up to a balcony where the library continued. On the ground floor between the books and the sitting area was a grand piano with the lid up.

More immediately, directly in front of me was a large glass cabinet with recessed lighting inside lighting crystal vases and old photographs.

Blond-lady exchanged words with Alex from the top of the stairs. I couldn't make out everything he said clearly, but he didn't seem pleased. I did pretty distinctly hear him call her "Mom" and my perception went all haywire. I mean, sure, it was obvious that's who she was, but it just didn't fit. I considered that maybe that office girl had given me the address for the wrong Alex, that I'd get to the top of the stairs and there'd be some other guy named Alex, some prince-Charming type who would be insulted that I'd confused him with windbreaker boy.

"Sorry." Blond-mom returned, an expression of mild irritation making a little wrinkled mark across her otherwise perfect forehead. She motioned that I should go up the stairs. I hesitated. She turned to lead the way and took off without waiting for me to respond. I noticed that her shoes matched her blouse, which meant they also matched her nails. I wondered where she shops and whether she redoes her nails every day to match her outfit. She was already several steps ahead of me and talking to me as she went. "I am so sorry," she said, expecting that I had followed.

"Ummm…" I slipped off my shoes rather than traipse up the beautiful carpet in them. Then, not wanting to mar the perfect entranceway, I picked them up and held them in my right hand. I trotted up the steps quickly so I was right behind her.

"This is not how we treat guests generally. I don't know what's gotten into him today!"

I thought I had a pretty good idea what had gotten into Alex, but I didn't say anything.

"Here we are" she said. His door was closed. I figured that meant keep out, but I wasn't sure how to say, you know, nevermind, I'm sorry, here just give him the jacket, I've got to go anyway and all that. I mean, I had, like, a second to say it, and I couldn't get my mouth to work fast enough, and then 'Mom' had the door open and was ushering me inside.

It was like looking into another world.

Wait. Let me say that another way.

It was like walking into Gaston Leroux's book.

Okay, I take that back.

There was no organ, no coffin, none of the overly creepy stuff. But the mood of the place was definitely the same. The walls were painted murals of stone masonry with archways and candelabras and heavy red curtains painted to match the actual heavy red curtains that adorned the actual windows of the room. He had some red canopy like thing hanging over the bed, and there was—no kidding!—a chandelier in there, too.

I was so amazed I just stood there open-mouthed and staring.

I didn't even notice Alex until it registered that he'd said "Damn it, Mom! I told you—!"

She squeezed my shoulder a little too hard and ran her hand back and forth across my back. "You two have fun," she said softly. Then she was gone. The door closed behind her soundlessly.

Alex muttered the f-word under his breath, folded his arms back and forth across himself and hunched forward with his hair drooping all around him so that he seemed about half his usual size.

"Sorry." It was for a time, the only word that came to me. Then I came up with, "Hey, if now's a bad time, I could leave."

He let out a frustrated noise like a cross between a yelp and a groan and spun away from me on his stool. "Too late _now_," he said crossly.

* * *

Reviews, please?


	29. Chapter 29

Whooo hooo! Hooray for making lemons out of lemonade. I was sick this week, so I couldn't really handle dragging myself to my office to do the work I do in my private practice. I canceled my appointments and stayed home to keep my germs to myself. I can't sleep ALL the time, and I'm not QUITE coherent enough to prepare documents for court, but I figured I could hammer out the next piece of Harrison High, so here you have it. Ta-dah! Enjoy.

* * *

I made up my mind to leave and then didn't. I looked around the room and discovered that Alex does oil painting. I looked around some more and discovered he plays the violin. He's got a music theory class with Mr. Monteleone, so one could sort of say that he composes, too. I gave him his jacket back and finally got a good long look at why he wears it, which made me sort of sorry I'd looked at all. To break the silence after I saw the flaky scaly skin he tried desperately to conceal with his folded arms and hunched posture, I pointed out that I didn't see the Beast out front. I hung around by the window while he got his jacket on and started acting normal again. The Beast was in the garage, he told me. His mother doesn't like having her—he refers to it as her—out front.

I stayed longer than I meant to, because he wanted me to. He said so when I suggested that it seemed like a bad time and maybe I'd better go. And when I finally checked the time on my phone and pointed out that if I didn't call home I would get in trouble, he asked me if I would come again. I said I would. If I remember right, I let the word "promise" slip out my mouth before I considered the consequences.

I went home and obsessed over my lists.

I started a Ryan list. It looked like this:

Ways Ryan is like Raoul  
1. Both of them have two syllable names that start with "R"  
2. Both of them are very attractive.

I started to write "both of them love Christine" but stopped. It would be presumptuous of me to assume that Ryan _loved_ me, but I knew what I meant. Ryan had certainly been acting like he likes me in a way that's way more than a friend. I mean, there was that day he almost kissed me, there's the fact that he asked me to the dance, and lately there's been that weirdness with walking me to every class and offering to carry my backpack and everything. He calls me every night, texts me every morning. I mean, what else does that suggest? I started to write "both are in a relationship with Christine" but I had to admit that I haven't officially reciprocated Ryan's advances. Okay, so maybe I have. Okay, so we haven't defined it at all. Well, neither did book-Christine and Raoul. So… both of them have a love/like/involved-with-but-confused-about relationship with Christine? Yeah. Close enough. That's how I listed it.

Ways Ryan is like Raoul  
1. Both of them have two syllable names that start with "R"  
2. Both of them are very attractive  
3. Both of them have a love/like/involved-with-but-confused-about relationship with Christine  
4. Both of them have known Christine since they were children.  
5. Both of them are considering a career in the navy  
6. Both of them are popular

I spent a long time chewing on my pen trying to figure out how to describe the boiler room door incident. I almost wrote "both of them tried to enter a place where Christine didn't want them to go" but decided I needed a new list.

Things that have happened that are enough like the book to be creepy  
1. The trapdoor/boiler room door thing  
2. The costume party/dance thing  
3. Our costumes (even though Alex did his on purpose)  
4. That I ended up at the dance with both of them (and left with that one)

That was it, I told myself. Only a couple little things. No big deal. I could probably pick any book in the world and find at least four things I had in common with it. Like what was I supposed to be reading for English III right now? _The Grapes of Wrath_. Okay, I had to admit that there really wasn't anything I could think of off the top of my head that related my life to _The Grapes of Wrath_. I even started a list for it and left it blank.

I went through the book line by line to see if there was anything else I'd missed. Oh yeah. There was more. _Way_ more.

There was the day Alex "abducted" me from the auditorium. It was a stretch, but I could sort of compare the Beast to Cesar if I had to. I mean, if it had been a test and Mrs. Lucas had said "Draw as many parallels between the book and reality as you can" and I needed to do it for the point, I could.

I was just thinking how exactly to pull that off when another thought hit me that creeped me out so much that I barely managed to write it down.

When I couldn't sing, it was _Alex_ who fixed it. Ugh.

5. He swept me away out of the auditorium without my permission.  
6. He took me to his underground hideaway and let me know his secrets  
7. He helped me sing.

Thinking about it made me tired.

I put the lists aside for the evening and went down the hall to beat on Trent's door. For once, he wasn't playing a game; he was on the phone with some girl, I figured out soon enough. I pantomimed Call of Duty to him. He rolled his eyes and pantomimed no because I'd kill off his characters. At least, I think that's what he meant. I pointed at myself. Twice. _Just_ myself. I pointed at the game. And myself. Can _I_ play Call of Duty. Not. As. You. He shook his head and made a face. I think it meant "You wouldn't stand a chance." I sat down on the edge of his bed and gave him my best "please" look. It hasn't worked in about five years, but I tried it anyway. He made a sad face and lip-synced "I'm sorry" back at me, then patted me on the head like I was a golden retriever. He pointed at the phone, pointed at his watch. He moved his mouth: "Soon."

:sigh: I stood and waved him away. "Never mind" I whispered. I went back to my room.

I couldn't think of anything else. I thought about starting over on a list of ways I am not like Christine. She didn't have an older brother who ignored her. She didn't have an older brother at all, but if she had, he'd certainly have let her play his game when he wasn't using it. She didn't sit around at night scaring herself to death with old books. She didn't sit around obsessing about lists.

I didn't care. I updated my list again.

Ways I am like Christine  
1. I have blond hair.  
2. I have blue eyes.  
3. My name is Christine.  
4. I sing.  
5. I might be good, but I lack confidence.  
6. I am closer to my father than I am to my mother.  
7. My mother is absent a lot (even though she's not dead.)  
8. I study music.  
9. Music is very important to me.  
10. I just recently got a lead role.  
11. I am nice to someone everyone else avoids  
12. I have very strong confusing feelings about a really hot guy whose name starts with "R"

It was a lot of ways, I decided. I changed lists.

Ways Alex is like Erik  
1. He is rejected by society  
2. He's not attractive

I knew it was the understatement of the century, but it seemed rude to write "He's hideous" or even "he's ugly." Poor Alex, I thought. It wasn't like there was anything he could _do_ about it. It was so unfair!

3. His name has four letters. And starts with a vowel. And ends with 'x' which looks a little like 'k'  
4. His father was not around while he was growing up.

(I can't remember when I learned that part, but I was sure it was true. I think that's part of why I was surprised to see his house. I pictured his mom as a single mom struggling to make ends meet. Go figure.)

5. His mom.

(That's how I wrote it because there was no short concise way to put it. So if you know the story at all, you know Erik's mother was unhappy to have a son that looked the way he did and made him keep his face covered. Erik doesn't talk about her much. He mentions her twice, both times while he's crying. When Christine takes off his mask, he wails that his mother never wanted to look at him. When Christine kisses him later, he snivels that even his mother never kissed him. Alex hadn't talked about his mother at all until I showed up at his house and met her, but what little he said in his bedroom that day he made it pretty clear he felt like she was disappointed to have him.)

6. He's good at music.  
7. He's infatuated with someone named Christine.

(I shivered at number seven and switched to another list.)

Ways Alex is not like Erik  
1. He's not deformed.

At least, I don't think he is. He does have those weird bony but hairless eyebrows, and there's something else peculiar about his face, but I wouldn't call it _deformed_, exactly. I wouldn't call it deformed at all, actually, if I hadn't been over-thinking things. But he certainly has a weird look about him.

2. He doesn't wear a mask.  
3. He doesn't live underground.

I looked at it for a few minutes, then crossed off "he doesn't live underground" and added "8. He has a secret hideout in a basement," to "Ways Alex is like Erik."

I crossed off "He's not deformed" and added "9. He has a medical problem that makes people scared of him" to my "Ways Alex is like Erik" list.

I added "10. He has no friends" and "11. He keeps a part of himself covered (and is horrified when anyone sees)." That meant I had to cross off number two from my differences list.

Desperate to have a long list of Ways Alex is not like Erik, I started over: "1. There is no Persian guy spying on him that I know of " and "2. he hasn't killed anyone that I know of."

Ideas started flowing. In a flurry I added:

3. He's not skinny  
4. He doesn't look dead  
5. He does eat. (a lot.)  
6. He doesn't have yellow eyes.  
7. He doesn't sleep in a coffin (that I know of)  
8. He doesn't have hands that feel like death.

I paused and scribbled number eight out. I added "12. His hands freak Christine out" to "Ways Alex is like Erik." I remembered the weirdness of Alex's hands, and all Alex in general, and felt sad.

I sighed heavily and added "13. Christine feels sorry for him."

Then I put my head down on my notebook and almost cried.

Then I pulled myself together and seriously started my differences list, Call of Duty silliness like having a brother like Trent aside.

Ways I am not like Christine

1. I am not Swedish. At least I don't think I am. (Who cares? Nationality wouldn't matter if reincarnation is true.)  
2. I do not live in France. (Again, who cares. Location wouldn't matter if reincarnation is true)  
3. Both my parents are alive. (But my mother is around so little it's almost the same? And Dad and I are really close.)  
4. I'm not that talented. (Scratch that. I might be talented. I don't feel talented, but other people think I am.)  
5. It is not 1800 and something. (So?)

There were no real differences and too many similarities.

I wrote, "I am Christine Daae" on the next blank page. Then I tore it out, crumpled it up, and threw it away.

* * *

Tomorrow is my last day at my full time job working for someone else. Friday the last of my children moves out. Therefore, beginning Saturday, although I sort of "work two jobs" I am my own boss and make my own hours doing both things. Thus, I expect that I will be able to update WAY more often starting then. The bad part is this story is almost over already and I don't know what my next idea will be, so there may be no posts in spite of the fact that I have a butt-load of free time. Go figure. Murphy's Law, right?


	30. Chapter 30

Surprise! An extra chapter for you, a little early! To what do you owe this lovely surprise? Well, to A&T, of course. Yes. No kidding. They left me sitting for 15 hours for a telephone install. Yes, FIFTEEN HOURS. Between 7 and 7 today, they told me, we'll install your phone line. A 12 hour window? What gives? But that's okay. I had a client the first hour and a huge pile of paperwork to do after that, so no worries. But after the files were all in order, I reached a stopping point. I couldn't drive back to the other office to get more work because they might show up while I was gone and I'd have to reschedule. So I sat there. And SAT there. And the guy FINALLY got there at like 6:00 or 6:15. And THEN he couldn't find the wire in the phone room. And then he said the building didn't have DSL and he would have to go across the highway to another building and run it, but he couldn't do that until Monday because it was after 5 and the other building was likely locked. WTF? Everyone else in my building seems to have DSL, so this made no sense to me. (There was also this shining moment where he showed me that one of the other tenants is actually hooked up to my peg in the phone room. I wanted to just scream! But of course, by then, I'd already been waiting some 12 hours, I think, so I might not have been entirely clear-headed. Anyway, my husband I and got disgusted and went out for dinner. The guy said he'd get it installed Monday morning. So we're sitting there at dinner and my cell phone rings and it's my office number! A cruel joke? No, the phone guy found out the other building was open and decided to give it one last try. Noble, I suppose, but we were out to dinner. But we were almost done... we stupidly went back. And we were there until 11:15 at night. No joke! But between the hours of 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m., one of the things I did was type this chapter for you. So here it is. Enjoy the fruits of my suffering.

* * *

As the spring musical was really close, all of us in the cast were expected to pick up our work from the teachers in the morning and complete it wherever and whenever we could—in the practice rooms during breaks, in the auditorium during lunch, at home after late-night practice, whatever. I cursed all the times I'd skipped and the pile of owed work my teachers gave me in addition to the current work. So I sat with my back against the wall in a backstage area doing a crappy job and basically putting together something to turn in. Like I said before, I'm not most gifted and talented kid in school, but I'm smarter than average, and can generally throw something together at the last minute that a teacher will at least give credit for. Imagine what I could do if I really tried, Dad always said. Yeah. Imagine. I wonder.

Ryan came to visit me as often as he could duck out of class, which was pretty often. Athletes get away with a lot, I admit. But I certainly wasn't going to complain. Since the only soda machine that works during the day is the one by the gym, Ryan bought me Mountain Dew on his way. I couldn't have calculated the last time I'd gotten a full night of sleep, so the caffeine was welcome. As was Ryan. Who shared with me more than just a Mountain Dew.

"Wanna know a secret?" Ryan said, sitting there in the guitar room with that know-it-all grin on his face.

"Sure," I said. Why not, right? Something to pass the time until they called for me on stage again.

"Com'ere." He stood on a chair and pushed a tile out of the ceiling.

Like the ceiling in the whole rest of the school, it's that white tile stuff that ceilings are always made of in big buildings like schools. You know the kind, I bet. They're about twice as long as they are wide, and they have those black strips between them that look like plastic but are probably actually metal? And the tiles lift—and if you turn them just right, they come out. Ryan didn't take this tile out, though. He pushed it up into the ceiling leaving a big ceiling tile-sized hole.

I looked at it and then at him. "Huh?"

"Come on!" He boosted himself into the ceiling so only his legs dangled where I could see them. Then he drew them up and disappeared completely.

"WTF?" I said. Only I said the words. Wouldn't you?

Ryan poked his head down out of the ceiling and motioned for me to stand on the chair.

I did. I giggled ridiculously. "You'll get us suspended," I said.

He grinned. "Never. Not unless you get us caught. Hush." He reached down and lifted me.

I kicked off the chair and let myself be pulled upward into the ceiling.

Ryan sat on a beam, folded his long legs up in front of him and grinned at me crazily. "What do you think?"

I carefully maneuvered to sit beside him on the beam without falling through the ceiling. "I think it's dark up here."

He laughed, a soft chuckle deep in his chest. "Yeah," he said. He reached toward me, caught a wisp of my hair, fingered it admiringly. My heart beat a little faster. He pushed the ceiling tile with his foot. It shifted back into place and it got much, much darker. "Do you want to know what I think?"

"Yeah." I'm not sure when my voice turned all breathless and panting.

"I think it's nice..." he said. His voice low, so soft I wouldn't have been able to make out the words if he hadn't put his lips right by my ear. I could feel his breath. I tingled all over but I held still lest I fall off the beam. "...that now _we_ have a special secret place together, Chris," he said. His hand strayed from my hair to my cheek and his lips moved from my ear to my mouth.

Oh my god. I opened my mouth to kiss him back. Our lips brushed together, lost contact, then came together again, but gently. His lingered on mine for a moment, pressing softly. My eyes had closed at some point, but I saw wild swirling colors on the insides of my eyelids. "Mmmmmmm-hmmmm," I think I said, though I was trying to say his name.

He drew away to say "shhhh" but my hands found the sides of his head, my fingers twined through his hair and pulled him to me. I kissed him hard several times, turned my head to the other side as I gasped a quick breath and pulled him in again. I felt my pulse all over. Ryan moaned a sound I felt more than heard and slipped his tongue between my lips. The light behind my eyes turned blinding.

"I've been waiting so long to kiss you, Chris," Ryan panted in my ear.

"Me too," I whispered. I've kissed a few of boys before. Not _that_ many, but I've certainly been kissed; it never felt like this before, though. I moved toward him.

He rubbed his head against mine like nuzzling me, then pulled up again for another kiss. I kissed him noisily. He shifted on the beam. I moved closer still. I was almost in his lap. Then we both caught ourselves as we almost lost our balance and fell into the ceiling.

I laughed.

He shushed me.

I covered my mouth with both hands and giggled. I couldn't help it. I laugh when I get startled.

Balanced now, he threw one leg over the beam and wrapped the other around my waist. "Silence, Beautiful," he told me. Before I could disobey he closed his mouth over mine and took my breath away.

When the last kiss ended I put my head against his shoulder and listened to his heart thumping. With his arm and his leg wrapped around me, I felt like I was part of him. I put my arms around him and squeezed him as tightly as I could.

And I almost said it. You know. Those three words that adults think that teenagers say too easily, that they think we don't know anything about. I almost said them because squeezing him could not possibly convey what I felt, and I wasn't sure what would. But I didn't because I heard sounds down below.

"Who's coming?" I said instead.

He let out a breath like a laugh and looked away. "No one," he said after a moment. "But I think it's time for you to go back."

"What if someone's down there?"

"There's no one in the guitar room. You'd have heard the door squeak."

I didn't move.

"Trust me," he whispered. He shifted his weight, removed the calf that had pressed against the small of my back, and squiveled around to lift the tile—I don't know how he found the same one, but he did—out of the ceiling. "Safe," he said, glancing through. "C'mere." As I slid toward him, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest. "Until next time," he whispered and kissed my ear. He lowered me through the hole. Standing on my toes on the plastic chair, I stole one last kiss from the boy up in the ceiling. Maybe stole isn't the right word. He certainly gave it willingly. When we stopped to catch our breath, he held my head between his hands and pressed his forehead against mine for a long moment, then gave me the softest quickest peck on the lips. "Goodbye, Beautiful." I ran to the door, out the door and into the auditorium. People milled about. Break time, apparently. I bet that was the sound I heard. I quickly found the place where I'd left my backpack and purse and pretended I'd been sitting there in the shadowy corner all along.

I wasn't the only person Ryan ever went into the ceiling with. Apparently he had some friends in the band who had shown him the trick during freshman year. _Freshman_ year? I couldn't believe he'd known for three years and was only just _now_ telling me! That's how big a secret it is, he said. None of the other guys bring their girlfriends up here, he told me. I ignored what he obviously implied, though I'm sure he wanted me to ask if this made me _his_ girlfriend. I didn't ask and he didn't tell, so we just continued playing the game, meeting in secret as though there was some reason why we had to keep it hidden.

I guess I should tell you more about the layout of the music wing. When you walk in through the main doors of the school, the audience entrance to the auditorium is directly to your left. If you walk straight forward, the band lockers are ahead. After you pass the band lockers, you turn left and then left again, and you're at the doors to the backstage area. If you turned left the first time, but didn't turn again to go back stage, you'd be looking straight down the music hall. There's a winding corridor on the right that takes you to the orchestra room, the guitar room and eventually opens into the big room at the end that's the band hall. Not too far beyond that is the place where the band uniforms and large instruments are stored, and across the hall from that is the entrance to the prop room. If you go all the way to the end of the hall and out the double doors, there's a practice field. The band marches there during band camp and the JV football team practices there when the varsity team is using the main field. It's where the seniors all lined up in the shape of a one and a zero and the photographer got up on the roof and took their picture from above for a double-page spread in the yearbook. The band director, Mr. Akers, Mr. Becavac and most of the other teachers in the fine arts department park back there.

Ryan doesn't. Students aren't supposed to park back there. Ryan wouldn't even if we were allowed to. Ryan parks on the complete opposite side of the school where the gym and the locker rooms are. When I drive to school, which isn't often, I park out in the main lot out front, even though it's not near drama or cheerleading. I don't know why, but it's probably because that's where I was used to waiting for Dad to pick me up freshman and sophomore years before I got my driver's license. Because I always go out the front, though, I never left with Ryan and I never saw him coming in. He still met me between classes, but most of the time we spent together we spent in the suspended ceiling.

* * *

Please please please please please review!


	31. Chapter 31

Okay... Now that it's summer, I can post much more often. Also, during the day of the terrible telephone ordeal, I had the opportunity to get a bit ahead on this story, so I'm actually almost finished with it. While I work out the details of the part that goes between what I managed to write and the actual final scene, you can have this bit of the story to ponder. And please don't hate Ryan after reading this. He's not THAT bad; he can't help how he is, and he's not a genius like Alex, so sometimes he just says really stupid $4!+ without meaning to.

* * *

He didn't always kiss me up there. Sometimes we talked. Other times we just sat. He'd put his arm around me or hold my hand. It thrilled me almost as much as the kiss. I wondered what my mother would think if she learned I was sneaking away to go sit in a dark secluded place like that with a boy who looked like Ryan and I decided that she'd be very displeased. She'd put two and two together and get seven hundred twenty-three. She'd be absolutely certain that we'd done way more than kiss, even though we've never done anything more and I can even count on one hand the number of times he's kissed me like _that_. Usually it was just a quick peck as we said goodbye. Only sometimes, unpredictably, out of nowhere one of us would say something funny and then as we recovered from stifling our giggles it would happen. Or I would slip and when I caught myself he'd be there besides me, holding on just in case, and I would turn my face up to his. Only sometimes. Most of the time, we just talked.

We talked about stupid stuff like his pet cat and how his mother hates cats and never lets anyone in the family forget it for an instant, but sometimes when she thinks no one is looking, she sits with Dandelion in her lap sometimes for an hour at a time. He told me how his father insisted he apply to the Air Force Academy and West Point as well as the Naval Academy "just in case," but he was committed to joining his father's branch as an officer or not. He told me how his grandmother crocheted a hat that was orange and brown and told him it was a Pittsburgh Steelers hat, even though their colors are black and gold.

"She's all like 'Here, I made you a Steelers hat, Sonny.'" His family calls him that because he has the same name as his dad. "And I'm like, 'That's a Cleveland Browns hat, Nan.' She goes, 'No, it's a Steelers hat. I made it for you. You wear it.' I told her 'I'm not wearing that Browns hat anywhere! I'd be a traitor.' And with this dead serious look she says, 'Why would you say that? It's a Steelers hat.' I said 'Nan, Steelers are black and gold. This hat isn't black and gold.' And you know what she told me? Seriously. She points to the brown part and says 'It's black.' I said 'No, that's brown.' And she looks at it real close and says 'It looks black to me. And that's gold.' No kidding. It was orange. So now I've got this hat…" He broke off laughing.

"Is she color blind?"

"No! I mean, I don't think so. No one else in the family is. And she used to see just fine. I think it's a trick. I think my cousins in Ohio put her up to it."

"Could be worse," I shrugged.

"Yeah. Could be blue and silver. Shit."

Most of our conversations were silly stuff like that.

I told him how annoying Sheila is. I told him about the time Mr. Monteleone's toupee came off. I told him about how when I first got the Christine part I'd been so nervous I'd all but forgotten how to sing.

And then, because I couldn't figure out how not to, I told him about Alex.

Not everything. Not at first. Just bits and pieces, slowly over time, the way it happened. I left big chunks of the story out. And other parts, I lied about. Like, I told him that I talked to him, but I didn't tell him about that day in the art museum.

Well, I sort of told him about the art museum. I told him I went there, and I told him I sang under a little starred dome. Just, in the version I told Ryan, I'd been there alone. I didn't tell him about the lady at the front desk who had said I was quite talented, either. I kept that for myself. My special secret.

Without meaning to, I blurted out the part about the boiler room. Not all of it. Not that we picnicked there at least twice a week. Just that I had been in there and Alex had been in there, and we'd had a conversation. He didn't look particularly shocked about the boiler room. I guess how could he, since I was telling him from a place in the ceiling somewhere above the music wing? One day I got brave and admitted that I'd danced a song with Alex at the masquerade ball.

Ryan looked shocked. "At _what_?" he said. I realized what I'd taken for shock was actually confusion. Had I just said masquerade ball? Whoops.

"Mardi Gras," I said, "the masquerade _dance_." Ryan doesn't take French, so he probably would think I'd just said some French thing. His confusion faded and was eventually replaced with a thoughtful look. "So that's why you were so mad at me that night," he said.

I covered. "Or maybe I danced with him because I felt so bad after the way you guys had treated him."

Ryan nodded. "That's what I like about you, Chris," he said. "You're so nice. To everybody."

That's what he _likes_ about me? Hadn't he accused me of being weird that night?

"I don't know. I didn't realize it was about being nice to him. That night, I thought it was weird that you were suddenly mean to Ben. It wasn't like normal you at all." I pondered this for a few moments. Ryan looked thoughtful too. Then he added, "I was a dick that night. I hope you forgive me."

And how could I not? "Of course, silly," I said. I leaned to kiss him but he stopped me.

"Beautiful _and_ sweet," he said. "What a package you are Chrissy!" He stroked my hair with a strange look on his face.

But even though he said he was sorry for what he'd said about Alex that night, he didn't take it all back, only parts of it. Like, he still thought I shouldn't hang around Alex. He couldn't quite explain why. "He's weird," he told me.

"Weird how?" I asked. Of course it was true. Alex is the weirdest person I know. But trying to explain how and why isn't that easy.

"He doesn't have any friends, Chris. If he was really that decent a guy, wouldn't he have some friends? I mean, not everyone is…" He paused to look for the words.

"… as superficial and shallow as you?" I suggested.

And he took it. "Okay. Yeah. Fine. I deserve that. But not _everyone_ is. If he was really a nice guy, don't you think that other people would see past all that? I mean, if no one talks to him, there's got to be a _reason_, Chris."

I told him I'd let him know when I figured it out.

"I wish you'd just stay away from him. When was the last time you saw him?"

"I don't know, Ryan. He's suspended or something right now."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about!" he exploded. "It _is_ the same guy then, isn't it? The one who went berserk in the hall that day and had to be dragged off by four teachers?"

"Two teachers," I corrected. "Or, a teacher an an assistant principal. Seriously, Ryan, you're blowing it way out of proportion."

"Am I? You think they suspended him for no reason? If he's suspended, he had to have done something to deserve it. There might be more to the story that you don't know."

No, Ryan. _There's more to the story that _you_ don't know_.

I said nothing.

"Look, I'm just saying. Lots of people are weird. What's the word? Eccentric. But they still have friends."

I have to admit he was right. Axl Scott was pretty weird, too, with his 1990's skater-boy hair cut and his contrasting overly conservative prep-school boy attire. And his infatuation with Ralph Nader. And his long-distance relationship with his vegetarian Buddist girlfriend who wears combat boots and striped knee-high stockings. But Axl has lots of friends, and I've never heard anyone _tease_ him, even though he's not exactly _friends_ with Ryan's crowd.

"This guy is beyond just strange, Chis. This guy sounds dangerous."

Was Alex dangerous? I wondered what my parents would say. I had a pretty good idea that Dad thought Alex was harmless from his attitude that day that Ryan stopped by. Mom didn't know anything about the story. What would Mom say if she heard Ryan right now? I could almost guess. "He's jealous, that's all. You know how much he likes, you Chrissy. Of course Ryan feels badly that you're spending time with another boy." Was that what she'd say? Maybe I was superimposing some TV mother over Mom. Mom's a bit of a feminist. Maybe it would come out more like "Well, I'm disappointed in Ryan for that. He doesn't own you." No, that was a too militant. "That's such a shame, Chrissy! Jealousy doesn't become him at all." I don't know. I figured that much out, though: if Alex had been anyone but Alex, jealousy would have been the perfect answer.

I didn't know for sure what Mom and Dad thought of Alex, but I knew what Mr. Miller thought. Mr. Miller was sure he was a genius. After we took the PSAT, Mr. Miller asked Alex how he thought he did, just casually, you know. Alex had responded that he missed one, and Mr. Miller laughed. But Alex was serious. No, I missed one in the math section. Mr. Miller claimed Alex remembered the problem. "I put A, but the answer was really C. I got careless, that's what happened." I laughed in disbelief when Mr. Miller told me. "That's what I thought," was his response. But then we got your scores back. Alex had the highest score for the whole junior class. He only missed one. And it was on the math section."

Surely a genius couldn't be dangerous, I told myself. Mom—or my speculation of Mom—was right. Ryan was just jealous, that's all. Because Ryan wanted me for himself.

But surely Ryan didn't think there was a chance I wanted to be with Alex, did he?

I laughed aloud at the the thought. Ryan asked what was funny and I made up a stupid lie.

But I kept thinking about it. Surely Ryan didn't think I wanted to be with Alex the way I was with him, did he? I tried to picture climbing up in the ceiling with Alex. Well, not really. I mean, I didn't think he'd fit through the ceiling tile-sized space, but doing something like that with Alex.

It wasn't hard to imagine. It would be the boiler room. I tried to imagine Alex putting his thick dry hands on either side of my face and pulling me in for a deep kiss. It didn't send butterflies fluttering downward from my stomach the way thinking of kissing Ryan did, but it didn't turn my stomach either. I closed my eyes and imagined it again. With my eyes closed, would it matter who was on the other side of the lips? I thought of Alex, tried to imagine exactly how Alex looked. It wasn't exactly easy to do. I remembered how repulsed I'd been by him that first day, and I knew that I could have pictured him quite precisely back then. Now when I thought of Alex I couldn't seem to see him at all. He was the voice in my ear as I stood under the little starred dome, the voice beside me belting out the Phantom's part from the overture with far more passion that my stage-phantom partner Mark, and the voice behind me as I looked out the window—a voice speaking softly about his mother, his car, and his view of the world.

We didn't talk about Alex often, but when we did, it always started with Ryan asking if I'd been going around him, then trying to explain away his bad vibes.

"It's not how he looks," he told me earnestly. "It's not because it's gross to be fat—I mean overweight—" he corrected himself. (Did I used to sound like this, I wondered?) It doesn't matter if he's _athletic_ or not, but shouldn't he at least _try_ to be healthy? I mean," he struggled to find the right words. "Tell me how you do it, Chris. How do you…" he ran a hand over his hair in thought. "How do you respect a person who doesn't respect himself enough to take care of the only body he's going to get?

"You should have quit while you were ahead, Ryan," I told him. "I liked you better at 'I'm sorry I was a dick.'"

"Okay. You're right. I'm sorry I'm a dick." He gave me a hang-dog look.

I couldn't possibly stay angry with him.

Meanwhile, I pondered it. Was it true? Does Alex have no respect for himself? Do I have respect for Alex? Is that was it is? Did I respect Ryan? Do I respect him less after this conversation? And where is Alex? Is he still suspended? What had happened to the boy attached to the voice that told me he just wanted his mother to be proud?

* * *

Thank you for reading. Please leave a humble writer a few remarks on your general feelings of the chapter. It brings great joy and satisfaction, which occassionally results in faster posting. And whether you review or not, I hope your summer is shaping up to be as beautiful as mine is!


	32. Chapter 32

Hello, hello! I've gotten many nice messages that you guys enjoy more frequent updates, so here's another one. Enjoy!

* * *

It was spring time, and the weather outside was beautiful. Not that I would know, having spent all my time on stage, or back stage, or hiding in the ceiling. But I found out soon enough.

We had a two-hour break before the last practice before dress rehearsal. I was suddenly nervous again and debating whether I could get all the way to the art museum and back for an attitude adjustment when they announced everyone involved with the musical in any capacity that no one was allowed to leave the school grounds for any reason. Ugh.

I headed toward the front door anyway. Maybe I could get away and back without getting caught. Alex had gotten away with it anyway, and he wasn't easy to miss, so surely I could slip off unnoticed, right?

Ryan was waiting for me with a huge smile. "I got out of cross country early to have dinner with you," he said. Come on.

I shook my head. "We're not allowed to leave." Yes, I was going to leave anyway, but I certainly wasn't taking Ryan with me to the art museum. Ryan would be blown away when he heard me sing next weekend. That was fine with me. I wasn't going to let him in on my self-doubt.

"Then let's not leave." He continued toward the language hall which was in the general direction of the front door, but also in the direction of the counseling office, the main office, all that school-business stuff that was located at the front of the school in the one-story part. "Can we 'not leave' together?

"Okay," I said unsteadily. We walked past the front door and a little way down the language hall.

"Where are we going?"

"Someplace special," he said cryptically. He paused in the hallway beside a door I'd never noticed or opened before.

I got nervous. It reminded me of the first time I'd ever been to the boiler room. Where was Alex, anyway? I hadn't seen him around, and it had surely been a week already. Hadn't he said he was only suspended _one_ week?

I wondered if Alex was behind that door and Ryan knew it. Maybe Ryan was going to pop in and do something terrible or frightening or embarrassing.

But Alex was still suspended. He _had_ to be still suspended. Right? Or else I'd have seen him! He hadn't come for me in the halls like he used to. No one called my name in the auditorium. I hadn't seen the Beast the parking lot. But then again, I hadn't looked.

All my worrying was for nothing. Ryan pulled the door open and there was nothing behind it but a mop, a bucket, a couple of bottles of chemical cleaner, an asbestos remediation sign, and a low-to-the-floor spigot directly above a drain in the floor. The janitor's closet. Ryan tugged me inside and closed the door. Expecting a heavy-duty make-out session like we'd not yet enjoyed, I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck.

He peeled me off him. "Wait, wait."

"What?"

"Not here."

Not here? Hadn't he just pulled me here? I had a sense of déjà vu just after the nick of time.

Ryan put his hand on a piece of metal stuck into the wall. It looked like a giant staple stuck into a bulletin board and then pulled most of the way back out. He put his foot up on another one much lower down. I let my eyes travel from his foot to his hand. A series of pieces of metal at intervals. Like a ladder. What the hell?

Before I could ask Ryan climbed up to the top one and pulled a metal lever.

Now I did ask out loud. But I changed the last word.

Ryan pushed open a hatch and we were looking up at sky.

My curiousity over-powered any sense of fear of the principal I might have had left after weeks of hanging out in the ceiling and months of skipping class in the boiler room. I climbed up the ladder and out onto the roof of the school.

"Oh my god!" I said. "No way."

"Way," Ryan told me. He pushed the hatch closed. No way anyone would ever find us up here! I sat down on the tar and pebble roof, tipped my head back, closed my eyes and enjoyed the sunshine. I had been too long in doors. I was ready for summer just as fast as it could come.

"Hungry?"

Pizza. I kid you not. Pizza. Ryan had a box of pizza. And when he opened it, it was still hot.

"Courtesy of the freshman in cross country. They owe me."

I didn't bother to ask how or why. Pizza! Pizza on the roof of the school. Who would have ever thought?

"Who else knows this is here?"

"The seniors."

"Ah." Some rite of passage. Some secret handed down. I wondered what else the seniors knew. I wondered what else Ryan knew. I decided the boiler room wasn't as special as I had thought it was. Apparently, students were skipping out and hiding all over the place, and Mr. Smith didn't seem to have a clue. It would have been sad if it wasn't so incredibly funny.

I ate three slices of pizza before I noticed what I was doing and decided to stop. I was, after all, still nervous, and nothing could possibly be grosser than pizza-vomit, right?

I stood. "Is it safe to walk around?"

"Safe? Sure, why not?"

There was a ledge around the edge, but I wasn't planning to get near the edge anyway. I could almost see the headlines: _Musical star falls to her death before opening night_ or something. No. I wouldn't be described as a star. Sheila would perform for opening weekend. Next weekend was mine. And I wouldn't fall to my death, either, off the roof of the single-story wing. Still, I wasn't taking any chances. I would definitely at least break a few bones.

"I don't know," I said. I walked carefully like I was afraid the roof would suddenly fall in.

"This is where the photographer goes to take the senior aerial picture," Ryan told me. "Here, look." With one hand on my shoulder and the other holding my hand, he guided me to the area above the practice field.

"Wow!" I was completely blown away.

I could see the Dairy Barn from up here. I could see the firehall and the post office, and if I went back to the front of the building, I was pretty sure I'd be able to see into the football stadium. I decided it would be a very nice place from which to watch a game if I didn't have to be someplace else. The practice field was empty since JV and freshmen practice during the day and the band wouldn't start practicing for football season again until summer. Ryan made a comment about being king of all he surveys.

"Like Yurtle the Turtle?" I asked, remembering a children's book from kindergarten. I glanced back at Ryan, who'd attended the same private kindergarten I had, even though we didn't live in the same school district back then. Then I let my eyes scan the kingdom he surveyed. The practice field. The old wooden bleachers. The parking lot.

My heart stopped.

Well, not really, but it felt like it for a second.

"Yurtle what?" Ryan said.

I couldn't answer. My mouth had gone dry and sticky.

"Chris?"

In the parking lot below us, I could see the Beast.

"What's the matter?" Ryan said, coming up closer beside me.

I still couldn't say anything. I pointed.

"Chris. What? Seriously. You're scaring me."

I swallowed hard. "That's his car." It came out like a croak. Good thing I didn't have to sing the lead tonight. I worked up some saliva and tried again. "That car there."

"Whose?" Ryan looked baffled. Then defiant. "His? His car? Where? He doesn't belong here. Do you want me to go tell him to stay away from you?"

I backed away towards a structure with a locked door on it and leaned against the brick. "No." I sounded far away. "No, Ryan, don't do anything."

"Okay," he said unsteadily. "I won't, but if you change your mind…. Chris, what's the matter with you? You're acting like you're scared of him. If you're scared, just tell Mr. Smith. He's already been suspended, right? If you tell him he's harassing you, he'd be expelled. Come on. Let's go tell." He took a couple of steps back toward the hatch where we'd come up.

I didn't move, so Ryan came back.

"That's not it, Ryan." How could I explain it to him? I wasn't afraid of Alex, exactly, no. What was I afraid of? Of what he might say? Of what he might think? No. How could I tell Ryan I was afraid of a book? Not of the book itself exactly either, but of the possibility that that book somehow had something to do with me. How had it ended? I didn't know because I hadn't even finished it yet. I'd gotten about halfway, to not too far after the masquerade ball, and I'd bookmarked it and stopped. Then I'd gotten busier and then I got wrapped up with Ryan, and now here I was with I had no idea how it ended.

I knew how the musical ended, and it had to be similar. The phantom takes Christine again, and Raoul goes to find her. The phantom puts a noose around his neck and ties him to the poricullis. He offers Christine a choice. I looked at Ryan, thought of Alex, and decided no way. There was no chance of Alex overpowering Ryan who had lifted me into the ceiling and set me down again so gently. I put my hand on Ryan's arm. I could feel solid muscle. He was a runner, so his legs were more built than his arms, but his arms were still strong. He could lift his own weight easily to get into the ceiling. He was certainly capable of defending himself from Alex, and if it came to it, he could run away in record time. Alex wasn't just overweight, he was also asthmatic I'd learned that afternoon at his house. No contest.

It didn't even matter, though, since the phantom lets Raoul go at the end. Christine and Raoul leave together.

And the others hunt down the phantom. Who disappears.

I pictured the popular students of the junior class chasing Alex. Poor Alex. I doubted his ability to get away far more than I doubted Ryan's ability to fend for himself.

"Ryan, I'm worried about Alex," I said.

"What?"

"Not worried about what he'll do to us. Worried about what _they'll_ do to _him_. He wouldn't be able to defend himself, you know."

"What are you talking about, Chris?"

"It's just like Phantom, Ryan. He's like the phantom. He's the guy no one likes, no one understands. Look! Even you just said you think he's dangerous. He just likes me, that's all. I'm the only one who understands him. Just like Christine. But look. Someone will misunderstand everything and it will turn out just the same in the end. They'll hurt him."

"Chris, you're talking crazy now. He's just a big goofy guy. No one likes him, but no one's going to hurt him. And Phantom's only a play. You've just let it get to you too much."

"No, no. Listen Ryan." I grabbed his hand and shook it desperately. "There's a book. There's a book about the real guy it's based on, Ryan. His name was Erik. He actually lived under the Opera. It's true. The mob went after him in the end because they thought he was going to hurt Christine. He disappears, but Alex can't just disappear. He can't even run away." I pictured it. It was like a scene from a movie. My classmates with wild looks in their eyes going after Alex, who would be desperately struggling through the trees behind the practice field, losing his breath, realizing he didn't have his inhaler. I started to cry.

Ryan pulled himself from my grip. "This is crazy, Chris. You're not thinking. He tried to kill that guy. He killed other people."

"That's just stupid. Alex has never killed anyone!"

"Christine!" Ryan shook me by my shoulders. "The other guy killed people. My god, you've got him so wrapped up with your play you can't even tell which is which!"

I put my hands over my eyes and tried to focus. I concentrated on my breathing until I managed to stop crying. Ryan was right. I was all mixed up. Yes, the phantom had tried to kill Raoul. And abducted Christine. That's why the mob went after him. Alex wasn't killing anyone, so no one was going to go after him. He hadn't abducted anyone, either. I'd gone willingly every time. I would tell them so, and they would believe me. I was acting stupid and irrational.

"You're right," I said, forcing myself to calm down. "I just… you don't understand about him, Ryan."

"You're right. I don't." He looked at me for a long moment. "You're so secretive."

He was right again. I _had_ been secretive. I hadn't told him. Or my parents. Or Mr. Miller. I hadn't told anyone anything. I hadn't even told Savannah, and I've always told Savannah everything. I'd gotten so wrapped up in the book that I'd come to believe that I had to keep Erik's secrets, even though Erik was from a hundred years before I was born.

"I'll tell you," I said.

And I did. I told him everything. The book, boiler room, the art museum, singing together, the Beast, the night of the Mardi Gras dance including Alex's strange behavior on the way home. I told him what I'd seen of Alex's confrontation in the social studies hall, how I'd found the jacket afterwards, how I'd returned the jacket and what I'd seen when I did. I revealed Alex's medical condition, ecto-something-long-I-couldn't-pronounce that had enough of "epidermis" in it to make it obvious that it was mostly a skin disorder. That afternoon at Alex's I'd learned about how and why his mother'd had his teeth capped and why he didn't take PE with the rest of the junior class, that the reason he was so good with academics and music was that he couldn't spend time outdoors. I told him about Alex's beautiful perfect mom, about how embarrassed Alex is absolutely certain she is that her only son turned out the way he did. How she makes him keep his old car in the garage because she is embarrassed by the way it looks and how he extrapolates from that and applies it to himself. How he relates himself to the car, insists he doesn't care how she looks, he'll he'll keep her until she dies. I was crying again long before I got to the end of it all, and Ryan put his arms around me and rocked me back and forth and stroked my hair. And when I calmed down, he kissed me again as he had that afternoon in the ceiling. With my eyes closed, I leaned against him and decided everything would be okay and I totally should've told him sooner.

A loud clang behind me startled me so badly I yelped. Ryan cussed and whirled around, but no one was there.

"We oughta go inside before we get caught," he said after staring at the hatch for a long moment.

"You're right," I said. "What time is it?"

I hurried back to final practice.

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Please review... and if you'd like an explanation about the recent chapters, feel free to continue reading this author's note:

So, I had a lot of questions about the chapter right before the last one a la "was this the rooftop scene?" and the answer to that is "yes and no." This concludes the rooftop scene. In Leroux, I guess it all happens on one day that they go up and play around in the rafters (I know they're not really the rafters, but you know what I mean) and then out onto the roof, I think. But they were playing at being engaged several days, and they were always in the "upper levels" of the place, so that's why that was there. But the REAL reason that both the ceiling and the roof are in this story is because of real life. My actual high school is the school upon which the layout of Harrison is based, and there really was a guitar room and you really could get into the ceiling from there. Actually, you could get INTO the ceiling from any room in the school because it was a suspended ceiling as Christine said. But there were teachers in all those rooms, so the only room you could get AWAY with doing it was the guitar room. Guitar was only one or two periods of the day because the same music teacher who taught orchestra taught it. Orchestra was usually held on the stage, in the pit, or in the bandroom, so the guitar room was left empty. Some of the pothead guys who were in the brass section of the band used to go up in there and smoke pot. At least, that's what /I/ heard from a few of them in their later years after they'd grown up, settled down and quit the illegal stuff. The bit about being able to go out on the roof is also true. At my high school, I don't know if they had that ladder and portal-like thing or not, but we DID stand out on the field in the shape of a 9 and a 4 and have our picture taken, and the photographer DID go up on the roof. I don't have any idea how he got up there. But years later, I saw this portal thing in another school. My third teaching job was teaching English at a high school in Texas, and I was in charge of the yearbook so I decided that we should do the same over-head photograph thing-only by then I think it was the class of 2001, so we made a 0 and a 1 out there, and then the following year, a 0 and a 2. At that school there was a ladder like I've described here inside the closet on the second floor. Because I was the teacher in charge of it, the photographer asked me to come up there with him to make sure it was the way I wanted it. I admit I was completely freaked out climbing up that thing and even moreso by being on the roof of the school. The kids who knew me cheered and waved when they saw me come out. It was sort of thrilling. And after the fact, when I was telling my journalism class (mostly seniors) about what it was like up there, a couple of kids confessed that they'd skipped class up there, so that's how that got incorporated into this story. Speaking of which, I am amazed at how often kids skip and get away with it. I never tried to skip a class period when I was IN school because my high school had a very good system of letting teachers know who was actually supposed to be out for the day, and if you weren't on that list but were out of class, you were in big trouble. That said, at the school where I most recently worked, there is no such system and on any given day, I'm not sure where any number of kids really are, and the same was true at two other schools where I've recently worked. I did, however, skip whole DAYS of school for the same reason Christine says she did-we had a tardy policy that meant detention for being late, but our absence policy was a bit looser. Thus, if you made yourself late to school, you might as well just take the whole day off to avoid consequences. Finally, I'll say that when I was in middle school, during I think 7th grade year, I actually didnt report to lunch for I think a whole semester but hung out in the bathroom instead. Like Alex, I had no place to sit. Unlike Alex, I didn't have to endure that my whole life or anything, just that one semester when drama between my one best friend and my other best friend in which I refused to take sides resulted in they both stopped talking to me, even when their fight was over. I can only even imagine how terrible it is for Alex, who is a composite of three or four of my former students.


	33. Chapter 33

Happy 4th, everyone! Oh yeah... that reminds me, I haven't even checked to see what countries readers are coming from, but I'm betting mostly the US. Anyway, here's an installment of Harrison High for those of you who are trapped in desert climates and not allowed to shoot off fireworks. No kidding. Not even professional fireworks. Drought. Everything's banned this year. So... I'm sitting at home writing. Could be worse. Anyway, enjoy the fireworks if you've got them, and while you wait, enjoy this.

* * *

If the Beast was here, it meant Alex was here somewhere. As soon as practice was over, I looked for him in all the usual places. When I didn't find him there, I started checking unusual places. He wasn't anywhere I could think of. I decided to go outside and stand by the Beast. If Alex didn't come right away I would call Dad and tell him I had to wait for Alex. Then I'd just sit there until he came out. He couldn't stay at school all night; he'd have to leave, and when he went out the door to do so, there I'd be.

I pushed open the heavy green doors at the end of the wing. Mr. Monteleone's car was still there. And Mr. Akers's and Mr. Becavac's. I didn't see the Beast, though.

I tried to remember what she was parked next to when I'd seen her from the roof. I tried to imagine where I had been standing and find her in relation to where I'd been. It was no use. She was not parked in her usual spot. She wasn't parked anywhere. Apparently, while I'd looked for Alex, Alex had left without saying a word to me. I went back through the school and out the front entrance. They were nowhere to be seen out front either. I found my car and got in. I pulled out my cell phone and stared at it for a long time. Call Dad? Call Ryan? I drove past Alex's house. The Beast wasn't there. Even if she was there, she'd be around back and inside the garage.

I circled the block. If I went up to the door, what would I say? Was Alex even home yet? I didn't particularly feel like explaining to his mother what was going on. Besides, there weren't any lights on in the front of the house. It was late. She might be asleep. It wouldn't be right for me to be visiting Alex after his mother was in bed.

I drove home, let myself in, waved to my parents and hurried up the stairs. "I'm going right to bed. I'm really exhausted," I called. They yelled goodnight after me.

I clicked on the small lamp beside my bed and turned off the main light. As an afterthought, I threw a towel down along the edge of the door. I didn't want anyone figuring out I was up and coming in to bother me.

The book was right where I'd left it, so I found it easily and opened it to the place with the purple bookmark and started reading. I cursed myself for being so stupid to have stopped reading it when I did. I was only a little past half way through it; I would have to hurry. Christine is supposed to go to Erik after her performance. But she's planning to run away with Raoul. Erik might be on the balcony outside Raoul's window, and Raoul has fired a gun twice in his direction. There is blood on the balcony, but Philippe thinks it's a cat. Philippe does not approve of Raoul's plans to marry Christine. Christine disappears in the middle of her performance and no one can explain how or to where.

I considered this. Could Alex be planning something similar? He shouldn't be, since he told me he deliberately does something different whenever something the same happens. And yet, in our last conversation, he'd had a very fatalistic nothing-I-can-do-to-stop-it attitude. Had he given up trying to change things? Maybe he was waiting for me to change something. What do you want me to do? He'd better not be at Ryan's house on some balcony outside. I comforted myself with the fact that Ryan's house does not have a balcony. That wasn't particularly soothing because it kept occurring to me that a career military dad probably _did_ keep a gun. I hoped no one would fire a gun twice in Alex's direction.

A bunch of craziness with a safety pin. Is this what they call comic relief? I didn't find it funny because it was taking up my valuable time as I rushed toward the end of the book. I skipped and I skimmed. I'd come back to this part if I thought I needed it later. These people have nothing to do with Alex and me.

The Persian, the Persian. There is no one Persian at my school. Not that I know of. Not even close. There is no one Iranian or Arab or Muslim at my school. There is no one even mysterious and unusually wise that I can put in this role.

Wait. Axl? But no. He has no connection to Alex. Skim, skim, skim.

Oh my god! Useless nonsense! Fake money, drawn on the bank of St. Farce. This is supposed to be funny yet again, is it not? Cruel mockery! I haven't the time, Mr. Leroux! Get on with it!

But it wore me out eventually. I got so tired that I felt sick to my stomach. I crept downstairs for a slice of bread and tried to keep going, but it was no use. I started to get a headache and I gave up. I was doubly upset because I'd finally just gotten to a place where it seemed something was going to happen again. Raoul and the Persian have gone through Christine's mirror, but then there's nonsense, nonsense, nonsense as they try to find their way, and it was during their trek through the dungeons that I at last surrendered and snapped off the light.

I expected that either I would lie awake and obsess or else that I would fall asleep and dream terrifying things. Neither happened. I closed my eyes, and what seemed like only moments later, I opened them and it was morning.

I put the book in my back pack and hurried to school early. I slipped into the language hall while everyone else was still milling about the cafeteria, the locker banks or the main entranceway. I went to Madame Welch's room.

"Bonjour, Madame." Standard greeting in French. She expects us to always greet her in French. Without fail. Since day one of French I.

With a delighted smile (possibly because hardly anyone actually bothers to try to speak French to her, despite her stupid rule): "Ah, Bonjour Christine!"

"Avez-vous un moment, Madame?" I feel trapped. How do I switch back to English?

"Oui, Christine. Que voulez-vous?"

:sigh: It is far too early in the morning to speak a second language, and I'm on little sleep and all stressed out. "Je… voudrai parle… regardez _La Fantome de l'Opera_."

Tired look. "Je _voudrais_ par_ler_ au _sujet_ _du_ _fantôme de l'opéra_"

"…" If I was a cartoon character, that's what my thought bubble would have said. I even pictured it as I stood there. I was supposed to say it correctly back, I know, but I was so tired, and this was important, and I was trapped in another language for no reason other than—

"Mais oui, _le Fantome de l'Opera_?" She looked disappointed. Poor Madame!

"Oui. Je…" I gave up. "Je voudrais nous parlons en anglais, s'il vous plait, Madame."

She smiled tolerantly. "Yes, Christine?"

"I wanted to talk to you about the story. Not the musical. The… you know…"

"The novel?"

"Um. Yeah. Have you read it?"

"Of course,"

"Okay. So, I wanted to ask you, you know, if you thought it ended badly."

She took a deep breath and looked out the window briefly. "Well, on the surface it doesn't have happy ending, of course. But I think that," she rustled some papers around on her desk. "I think that the author…" She paused and looked at the ceiling. "You have from his other work, it seems that he was working with a few specific themes and making a certain point. Have _you_ read it, Christine?"

"Um, yes. Sort of. I haven't quite finished it yet. But I mean, I know how it ends. Sort of."

She nodded.

"It ended the way it needed to end in order to make the point that Leroux wanted to make, I think."

"Yeah, I guess, but I mean for real. I mean, do you think that it's possible they were meant to be together? Erik and Christine?"

"Meant to be together? No, I don't think so. If Leroux intended for us to think they that they were meant to be together, they would have been together. No. It may have been meant to be in the sense that Erik's redemption required Christine's mercy, but beyond that, no. The author—"

"But," I interrupted, "I don't mean what the author wanted. I mean if they were really meant to be together. In real life."

She stared at me for a long time. I held my breath. I could hear the ticking of her clock. "Christine," she said at last. "Christine Daae and Erik are fictional characters. They are not real people. They are not based on real people. There was a famous musician named Daae. Perhaps Leroux borrowed his name. There are those who have theorized that Erik is based on a real person, but that is fantasy more than theory. I personally suspect that Leroux combined the elements of horror and gothic romance from Frankenstein and Dracula with accounts of real people such as Joseph Merrick to arrive at Erik's description. Yellow eyes, sleeping in a coffin, those types of things. And complete isolation from the human experience."

"But there are tunnels beneath the Opera!"

"There are tunnels beneath a good portion of Paris. It doesn't mean anyone is living in them, Christine."

"But—"

"Leroux used the name Christine in other works as well. It's thought that the name was because it contains 'Christ' and in each case the woman is a redeeming figure."

"So she's not real?"

She shook her head.

"But if she's not real…"

"I'm sorry, Christine."

I don't know why she felt the need to be sorry. Did I look disappointed? I wasn't. Not a bit. Releaved is more like it! If she wasn't real, then I couldn't possibly be her. And Erik wasn't real. So Alex couldn't be Erik, either. The whole thing was fake, so none of anything that happened meant anything other than a series of really bizarre coincidences. And if you really thought about it, they weren't particularly bizarre—or coincidences—if you consider that Alex was obsessed with the book and was making things happen. And now he has me reading it while I'm performing in a musical based on it. How could we possibly not, subconsciously even, make things happen? And he'd picked me, not because I am her, but because my name is Christine. And I'm blond. We have another Christine in the junior class, but she's got dark hair and I don't think she's a singer. And of course, she might not be in any of Alex's classes.

Silly Alex! He'd just let his imagination run away with him—run away with us both!—that's all. It was nothing. There _was_ no phantom of the Opera. There was no Erik. There was no Christine Daae.

I had to find Alex and tell him. We weren't destined to fix or relive anything because there was nothing to fix or relive. He was just Alex and I was just Chrissy. Thank God! I could date whomever I wanted and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to anyone at all.

I checked the band hall, the orchestra pit, the practice rooms, the roof and the boiler room. I couldn't find him.

I thought I saw him once for a second, but then he was gone. If it had really been him, he'd walked past me without a word, without eye contact, without even the eyebrow quirk he gave me when he ordinarily passed me when I was surrounded by others. He never talked to me publicly. Never. I don't know if he was avoiding my friends, avoiding people like Ben who were sometimes around, or just avoiding being seen with me out in the open in general. I mean, not being seen with me, but letting me be seen with him. He seemed to know that there would be some type of reaction from the student body.

Did you do it to protect me or yourself, Alex? Are you avoiding me? Avoiding them? Saving me the horror of having to explain that _I know you_? I whirled around to call after him, but he was gone. I called anyway. "Alex!" People turned, moved aside, glanced in my direction, looked around. No Alex.

I was going crazy, that was it. He hadn't been there at all. He was still suspended. Or he was skipping. Or his mother decided she'd have enough trouble from Alex after the suspension and transferred him to another school or something. Maybe he'd live with other relatives in another school district, if there were other relatives who would take him in. Or maybe he'd be homeschooled. Fat chance of his mother spending her days teaching him if she was anything like he said she was, but he was pretty smart. Maybe he could study independently and she could just give him tests or something.

Why was I on this crazy train of thought anyway? It's not like it was my problem. The point is, he wasn't here, I hadn't seen him, I was just letting his obsession with that book and his claim that we were reliving it get to me too much. Madame Welsh said it was fiction. That was good enough for me. Nothing else mattered. And Alex wasn't here. It was over.

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Reviews, please? Will hurry up with next chapter in exchange for lots and lots of comments.  
Oh yeah... and could someone please check Madame Welsh's French for me? I don't care if Christine has more errors than I purposely put in there because, you know, she's flustered and upset and can't even think straight in her first language. But probably the teacher ought to say everything right, don't you think?


	34. Chapter 34

Okay. I'm a slacker. I'm a complete and total slacker. I promised a faster update, and I didn't deliver. I can at least offer an explanation, if not an excuse, because there IS no excuse. But the explanation is as follows. I wrote the ending a long time ago. Then I changed it. Then I changed it back. I changed it again, but now I'm wondering if the way I changed it most recently is right. As we get closer to the ending, I get worried because I don't have it the way I want it yet, and I'm concerned that if I post something now and change the ending again, I'll have posted something I shouldn't have. But I can't post the next 1300 words or so without any trouble. I think. So here they are.

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I made my way back to the auditorium and settled in back stage. The school day would be endless run-throughs of trouble spots to make sure we'd worked the bugs out. There would be a brief after school break and then dress rehearsal. Sheila has Christine's role throughout opening weekend, so I was in the chorus, and briefly I'd be the mirror bride. No worries. Easy stuff. Nothing to worry about at all, except finishing the damn book between everything else.

By skimming and rushing, I managed to get through the passageways and into the torture chamber with the Persian and Raoul. Christine was already there, and she said she was tied up. Tied up! Erik was acting crazier than ever. Christine confirmed it. She said he was horrible and raged like a drunken demon. _Thank you_, I whispered to no one, to anyone, to God if he was listening. Thank you for its being fiction. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

The book got almost ridiculous after that. Grasshopper, scorpion, an electric doorbell (they had those back then?) and Erik is all wet because it's raining (underground? WTH?). Barrels of gunpower, Erik threatening to kill everyone, but then water, water, water.

I had to get to the ending. I'd come back and read it slowly enough to make it make sense later, but first I had to know the end before tomorrow night!

What a weird place to end a chapter! They are drowning, and then suddenly, Mr. Leroux is going to visit the Persian in his little apartment. So he survived then. How? Would have been nice if he hadn't just skipped over that really important part. I went back and checked. It wasn't me. It wasn't something I'd skipped. It just ended and then picked up with "When I went to visit the Persian…" Ugh!

Why couldn't he have just written the stupid book in the order it really happened? Except it hadn't really happened.

Then why was the author speaking in first person again? I thought they never wrote like that back then!

I rubbed my eyes and my head with frustration. Stupid book! Student Madame Welsh. Why did I automatically believe _her_? Do teachers know everything? Just because she teaches French she's an expert on every book by a French author? Oh who cares, just _what happens next_?

And then:

Oh my god. I cried.

First let me tell you that Mr. Leroux said again that he was a journalist and a historian. He said it right there on page 311. The Persian had grown old and was sick, maybe dying, and "it took all my ardor as a historian—journalist in search of the truth to make him agree to relive with me the incredible tragedy." Not real my ass, Madame Welsh. Whatever.

Anyway, the important part. Erik is suddenly not terrible at all. He is taking care of the Persian after his near-drowning. And Raoul, too! Raoul is sleeping there in Erik's house and Erik says he's not to be wakened.

But the Persian falls asleep and wakes up again at his own house. For an instant I thought it was all going to have been a dream, and I got really mad for a second. Like, I put all this energy into reading this stupid book, it better not end stupidly or something. But it wasn't. Erik shows up again.

Oh my god. I had to slow down. You can't possibly skim over this part.

Extremely weak… leaned against the wall… afraid of falling…

"I am dying," he says. "Dying…. Dying…" Why am I crying already? "Dying of love."

I was just sort of tearing up and sniffling until she let him kiss her. Then I jumped up, pretended to be coughing and ran for the restroom where I hid for a few moments in the large stall at the end of the row where no one could see me.

I thought about finding a more private place, but I couldn't read in the ceiling because it's dark up there, and I didn't think I could open the rooftop hatch. That left only the boiler room, which was too far away from this part of the school and all the way downstairs in the basement by the cafeteria.

I dried my eyes, blew my nose, and scrubbed off my mascara before I made my way back. No one was in the orchestra pit, so I sat on the steps on the left side, which is really the right side when you're on stage. I had just settled onto the steps when I noticed a door. I don't know why I got up and walked over and opened it, but I guess becauase with the boiler room and the guitar room ceiling and the janitor's closet with the hatch to the roof and the fact that I was going to be a senior next year, I just couldn't leave an unknown door closed. Honestly, would you? So I opened it and slipped inside.

It was storage, apparently. Just boxes and boxes of old stuff. I guess mostly props from prior musicals and plays. I didn't really go through them. I just decided that it was a great place because no one would probably come in here, so I could blubber through the rest of the book and no one would say "OMG, why are you crying?"

I went back and started over at the place where Erik shows up. It didn't seem right to start re-reading at the place where I'd left off. I bit my lip and kept myself quiet the whole way through the whole heart-wrenching mess. I admit, I actually thought it was going to end differently. When he's all there crying and she's crying with him, I honestly thought "Oh my god, she's not going to leave." I mean, how could she? It makes sense on the stage. _Go now and leave me_. It's not quite the same as, _You can marry the young man if you want to_. He was acting all calm and reasonable. Like it was actually true that he could be good if she actually agreed to marry him, which I guess I'd thought was just a manipulative thing to say, when Chistine said he said it. But seriously, if you were going to leave, you should have left by now. If you stuck it out through all that, why the hell leave now? Now of all times? Last _night_ it made sense to leave. An _hour_ ago it made sense to want to leave, but _now_? So I had myself all worked up to thinking she was going to stay.

And then she left.

It didn't make sense to me anymore. I mean, Raoul is okay all that, yeah, I'm sure, but what did Christine really have with him? Childhood memories? A silly fantasy game? Money, yes, that's for sure. And he's noble, okay. So what? Erik loved her. Erik needed her. And where would she have been without Erik? So why leave with Raoul? Well, okay, I get it. He's attractive, of course. Not that I could actually _remember_ Mr. Leroux's physical description of him since in the film clips running through my imagination I'd cast Ryan in the role of Raoul weeks earlier. But….

But Christine obviously left because because if Erik is at the Persian's apartment babbling about it, she must be gone or else they'd be together.

Yes, sure enough, she leaves, just as I always knew she had.

And then he was dead.

Dead!

Mind you, not just disappeared, but _dead_. He'd been babbling about how he was dying of love and making deals with Christine that she'd come back and bury him when he was dead, and I figured he was just an overly-dramatic drama-king, but on the next page, _he was actually dead_.

I was stunned to this shocked silence where I didn't feel like crying or anything. I just stared at the page. Dead! How?

But there was more. I had to read on.

The rest was about five pages of Mr. Leroux telling me again that the story is true, true, true. "I am sure—absolutely certain—that I myself prayed over his corpse the other day. I asked God to pity him, despite his crime, for why did He make a man that ugly?"

Indeed, why?

And suddenly my thoughts were sounding just like Alex. Who _talks_ that way?

I closed the book and folded my arms back and forth across it. Wow. I'd cried at a book. I couldn't remember the last time that had happened. I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. I'd cried the first time I'd seen the movie, and I'd cried again the first time I saw it on stage. But the book… Oh, the book. Oh my god, poor Erik! Even without the music and the acting and the camera angles or the thrill of watching live theatre, it was worse, worse, worse. I don't cry over the movie anymore, and I'd been watching and acting out the musical—or at least parts of it—over and over and over until I thought I was completely desensitized.

_You all are so jaded_, Mrs. Surmacz told our class once. She hated the way we didn't feel the way she thought we were supposed to after reading books. _You are all so jaded from watching so many movies…_ Nope. Not me. Not today. Take a look at me today. Speaking of which, something needed to be done about that. My daytime makeup would be coming off in an hour or so to be done for dress rehearsal anyway, so it didn't have to be perfect. I pulled out my compact and reapplied my foundation before fixing my eye makeup. I checked my phone for the time, stuffed the book into my backpack, and hurried back above.

Finished. It was finished. I'd return the stupid book to Alex and the whole mess would be over.

What I'd say when I gave it to him I didn't know. If I'd just read it quickly back when he gave it to me, I might have said, "Hey, here's your book," and just walked away. But it was months later, and all the rest had happened. Somehow, I had to say something bigger and more important now, but I had no idea what. I felt like I needed time to think about it and figure it all out, but I was also absolutely certain that there wasn't time for any of that.

Dinner with the cast. Delivery from a place across the street. Ryan wasn't here tonight. He had a meet for cross country. But he'd be here tomorrow night for opening night for certain. And he'd be here again next weekend when it was my turn to have the lead. At least I wouldn't have to face Ryan while I was still trying to figure out how I felt about the book. Ryan wasn't here.

But Alex was! I saw him, _finally_.

He walked by me looking almost normal in a rented tuxedo and slipped into the orchestra pit. _The orchestra pit?_ I raised my eyebrows at him as he went by me. He barely reacted.

"The book is a fake!" I had planned to tell him earlier today. But that was before I finished it and Mr. Leroux said again how certain he was about the real Erik and all that. All the same, I sort of wanted to jump up and yell, "It's fake!" and "We don't have anything to worry about!" at him. I mean, maybe it was real and maybe it wasn't, but maybe thinking it was fake for a couple of days could be a good thing. He wouldn't believe me, so I'd take him to Madame Welsh tomorrow and ask her again in front of him. Then maybe we'd go to the library and look it up and find out for sure—after the musical was over when I had less to worry about. Not the school library. Alex would know some special better library, maybe the university library over by the art museum we'd visited. I could picture us sitting at the library, maybe with snacks. I'm at a table with a bunch of books spread out and opened to various pages. Alex comes over with a thick heavy volume that looks a hundred years old. He points to a paragraph. "Look what I found, Christine," he says. I notice that he has never called me Chris or Chrissy or anything else but Christine. I glance up. His long thin hair obscures his face as he inclines his head to read again. Yes. We would find out.

"What?" Marc whispered from beside me in real life in the present.

"What, what?" I responded. I hadn't said anything.

"I was just wondering what was funny. You've got this big ass smile on your face."

"What? No I don't!"

He blew out some air in a silent laugh. I put my hands to my lips to check and tried to look neutral.

I didn't yell anything after Alex for the same reason I tried really hard to stop smiling. It was dress rehearsal. I didn't want to screw anything up.

Meanwhile, Alex had slipped away. He hadn't seem to notice me at first, but then, for just an instant, his eyes had locked onto mine and seemed to burn into me. He turned away and disappeared below the edge of the stage and like I said, _into the orchestra pit_. It left me so perplexed I actually forgot to go to my place before opening curtain. I cussed under my breath and wished that dress rehearsal could have been any night but tonight. But I'd find him afterwards for certain. I wouldn't waste time looking for him in all the usual places. I'd run straight from the final curtain call to the back door and stand by the Beast still in costume if I had to just to make sure I didn't miss him. I didn't care who thought that was weird.

Unless I could catch him at intermission. If I could just catch him then….

But he was nowhere to be found yet again.

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Reviews, please?


	35. Chapter 35

Hey! Sorry it's been so long. I had to go out of town for work-related stuff a couple of times. I thought I'd get all this extra time to type on the plane, but it didn't work out like that. Anyway, I'm back now, so here's the next chapter. I still have two basic endings in mind, one which was the original ending and one which I recently thought of that makes a little more sense given some stuff I happen to know, but I go back and forth between which one is more realistic, which one is more powerful, which one I like better, which one will make the point I want to make, etc. etc. etc. If anyone wants to offer suggestions or hopeful guesses, please feel free to do that either in a review or via a private message.

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Dress rehearsal. Sheila performs Christine on opening night, so this is _her_ dress rehearsal. I'm on standby, but I don't expect to be needed. I'm singing in the ensemble because I have to be there. I'll be the mirror Christine later. I know my blocking, my role, Christine's role, everyone's role. I should; I've done this a hundred times. More than a hundred times. It's a good thing I don't need to pay attention, because I don't. At every turn, my thoughts are back in the plot of the book. If this were the Leroux book, this would have happened in flashback. If this were the Leroux book, that wouldn't have happened at all. Things like "If this were the book, she would be fainting, not walking through the mirror so willingly and singing about it the whole way" or "if this were the book, the taking off the mask part would have been completely different and wouldn't have ended so abruptly." Later there would be "If this were the book, Raoul would be passing out, not drawing a sword." A sword? According to the book, they had guns already, so why would anyone do anything with a sword? And speaking of guns, how and why did the Persian guy get cut from the musical? And why is Madame Giry respectable and in a position of power instead of having a shoe print left on her behind? If this were the book, Christine would attend the masquerade with Erik and meet Raoul in secret, not attend with Raoul and be surprised when Erik shows up. If this were the book, Erik would never willingly hand his opera over to the managers, who would be bumbling about looking for safety pins because of all their lost money. If this were the Leroux book, I wouldn't need to be a mirror bride because there isn't one. But there _would_ be a torture chamber, a grasshopper and a scorpion, and a really bad flood. If this were the book, Raoul would not be the only one whose life was in danger at the end.

I started to feel sick to my stomach right before intermission.

Intermission!

Speaking of, if this had been the book, Erik wouldn't have disappeared for so long during the time of the intermission, so Christine's engagement to Raoul would make a lot more sense being a secret than it does in the musical, where seriously Raoul's question "Why must it be secret?" really is a valid question.

But no time for that! Intermission! Time to search again for Alex!

No use. Instructions, directives, a costume change and other distractions. Mr. Becavac enters the pit, emerges, enters again. "Where the hell is my first violinist?" he says aloud to no one in particular. I can't even begin to be of any help, as I have worries of my own. Is Alex still here? What was he doing here, and why hasn't he talked to me? Never enough time to find out the answers to anything. Intermission is over with scarcely a break.

We are nearing the end. Piangi (who is being played by some underclassmen whose name I forget and who isn't even supposed to exist!) is dead. Saul is in his place as the Phantom, whom I now keep calling "Erik" in my head accidentally. For now he is sensuous, seductive and over-confident. In a moment he'll be horror-struck as Christine unmasks him in front of everyone, which is completely inconsistent with her "Oh, how I pity him!" remarks from the book.

Despite the differences, the musical, like the book, takes too long. I fast-forward in my mind, to Saul as Erik screaming, "Go now and leave me." As much as I've loved the musical all my life, this is not the way it should have ended, his last interaction with her screaming. He's nice at the end, though only a short time earlier he'd been threatening to kill her, himself, everyone, including a whole bunch of uninvolved people up above watching something—

My perception shifted from the action nearby to the wings. I took a step away from my place. If anyone noticed or cared, it didn't show.

A few pages from now, he will be dead, but only after coming dangerously close to killing a whole bunch of other people first.

I glanced over my shoulder. I had a feeling something was about to happen. Where is my first violinist? Becavac has asked. I drift from my place. Violinist indeed! Opening night will have to continue without the mirror bride. What use is she, anyway? I turned and ran down the steps at stage left, glanced into the orchestra pit and considered the door I'd gone through earlier that day, at Becavac conducting, and Angie's little brother with his violin, watching intently with nervous eyes.

I whirled around, headed into the wings, found a creepy concrete staircase leading down and took it. Everything is connected, I thought. Alex led me from the janitor's closet all the way to the cafeteria once, and Ryan showed me that the whole ceiling was connected too, if you didn't mind crawling around and getting a little dirty.

I was in a dark, narrow room piled with boxes. At the end of the room, I found a door, pulled the handle, threw my weight against the door, stumbled through.

The door closed behind me and I was in complete darkness.

The smell was familiar, the same as the room I finished the book it. It brought back my feelings about the ending intensely. Another smell I I recognized but couldn't exactly place mingled with it.

I waited for my eyes to adjust, knowing it was completely stupid since it's not possible for humans to see in total darkness, but maybe I'm wrong or maybe this isn't total darkness, because after a few moments, I can see the outlines of the boxes and props.

I headed forward, not really knowing what I was looking for and yet dreading what I might find at the same time.

I saw jumping shadows in dim light.

Why, I wondered. Could it be light filtering through from on stage, I wondered, and an unwelcome image from the movie popped into my head. Or could there be a light on down here, almost burned out and flickering? I wished for a flashlight and told myself that wishing was stupid.

Then I recognized the flickering as familiar. It reminded me of Christmas, of Advent, and of the time I was babysitting and the lights went out. Suddenly the smell made sense, too: _candles_.

"Alex?"

I barely whispered it. After all, there was a musical being performed above me, and if anyone had noticed I was missing, they apparently hadn't yet figured out where I'd gone. Still, I'd have to be louder than that if I expected anyone to answer me; I hadn't even heard the words I spoke myself.

"Alex!" I switched to a harsh, loud whisper.

Something shifted in a corner of the room and I opened my mouth to yelp but managed to stay quiet. I looked toward the place, stepped around a box, looked again. I could make out an enormous shadow in the approximate shape of Alex. I stepped forward past a pile of old junk, glanced into an empty area in the corner of the room opposite the shadow.

I saw the source of the light, then. A single candle was burning on what looked a lot like an end table and might be something some parent donated. Alex was sitting behind the table in the corner, facing the candle, his face just above it being weirdly, creepily illuminated. The flickering candlelight make his already unusual appearance stranger than usual. He looks almost as frightening as Erik. In fact, in the candlelight, his features took on Erik-like aspects despite the obvious differences in size. His forehead and cheekbones were illuminated and seemed prominent. His eyes seemed to disappear entirely into the shadows made by their sockets. The candlelight reflected orangely in his eyes.

"Christine?" he looked up at me. He blinked in what could have been disbelief. "What are you doing here?" He looked surprised. Maybe even frightened.

We'd diverted far, far from the plot of the book—further even than the musical had. If this were the book, Erik would know exactly why Christine was there; he'd brought her there himself. So what I was supposed to say? "I had to come, Alex." I heard myself saying before I'd even decided it for sure. "I had to find you."

"Indeed, Christine?"

I shivered. He hadn't completely convinced me on the whole reincarnated-Erik-thing, but who _talks _that way? Seriously. Who my age do you know who talks that way?

Me, I guess. "Indeed, Alex," I told him.

He muttered something under his breath, something soft enough that I shouldn't have heard it, but I sort of did. I was pretty sure he'd said, "Erik."

"What, Alex? What?"

He looked away. "Call me Erik, Christine."

"Your name isn't Erik," I said. I noticed the pounding of my heart increase and it finally registered that it had already been pounding before he'd said that. My body felt cold all over.

"And neither was his, apparently." He's right. At least, according to what Gaston Leroux said that Erik said. Although, how would he know unless Christine told him? Christine told Raoul... Did Raoul tell the Persian? Who told the writer...? "At least, no one is certain that it was."

Alex's voice was softer, calmer than usual. It could have been my imagination or something related to the excitement of dress rehearsal, but it seemed richer, more melodious. I remember thinking, _Oh my god, I'm going crazy if I think for one minute that Alex is Erik!_

He met my eyes briefly. "Perhaps we choose our names, Christine."

It isn't true. It most certainly isn't true or I would have chosen anything but _Christine._ But I heard my own voice said back, "Perhaps, Erik."

He looked at me for a long moment. He sighed. I moved a little closer and tried to look at him carefully in the candlelight. He looked sad. I'm not that good at reading faces, but he looked very, very sad. What happened, I wondered? More of our social elite bullying the very obvious target? Or something more?

"What's wrong, Erik?" I shivered when I said that name.

He didn't answer. I remembered why I'd run down here in the first place.

"You're scaring me," I told him. I couldn't force myself to call him any name.

"There is no need to be afraid, Christine. Erik could never harm you."

"Okay, you're really freaking me out, now." I actually backed up.

"Some things never do change," he said with another heavy sigh. He shifted on whatever he was sitting on, then got up and lumbered around the little table. The light flickered, illuminated him, dimmed in the swirl of air he created moving by.

It was still Alex. He was still excessively large, not a skeleton in a suit, and he still had the same thick forehead with the same soft brown eyes, not glowing yellow ones. It was weird seeing him without the windbreaker. I'd only ever seen him twice without it—the night of the masquerade and the day I took his jacket to him. He was completely covered tonight, though, by the jacket of his rented tuxedo. I remembered his offering me his red-death coat, but he'd had long sleeves underneath that night. Always long sleeves covering a condition completely different from Erik's but resulting in the same type of treatment. With or without the windbreaker, he was still Alex. He was always going to be Alex.

"What's freaking you out?" he said in a tone far more normal and teenage than before.

I panted in relief. "I finished the book. I read all the way to the end. I wanted to finish it last night, but I fell asleep." I gasped. "I finally finished it today, between the end of school and the start of dress rehearsal."

"That's good." His voice lingered somewhere between Alex and trying-to-be Erik.

"Yeah. I felt like I had to finish it before opening night." His eyes flashed, met mine, burned intensely, but he didn't say it. He didn't say _like Erik had to finish Don Juan before he abducted Christine_.

Instead he said, "Tell me your thoughts on it." His voice was soft, gentle, and not quite condescending, but certainly in the role of Erik to a much-younger Christine.

"Well..." I hesitated. Should I tell him I cried? In my mind, my voice was higher-pitched and soft, like women in 1950s movies and 1960s TV shows. Like every woman who ever seduces Captain Kirk when my dad watches Star Trek re-tuns. High, soft, and just a little bit on the hysterical side: _It's a terrible book, Erik, with an unhappy ending. I didn't like it a bit. I much prefer to read stories that end happily._ No. I wasn't going to be Christine. Or, rather, I wasn't going to be_ that_ Christine. I suppose I don't have much choice about being Christine or not, even in real life. I'm always going to be Christine. But this night I had to remain twenty-first century high school Christine. "It freaked me out because of what you said about reliving it," I said. Yes, that sounded very current time-period appropriate. "Because some really crazy ass shit happens there at the end. I don't think it would be a good idea to redo any of that. In fact, I think it would be a really bad, totally dumb ass idea to redo even a little bit of it."

He was silent.

"See, but the thing is, Alex…" Yes. He's Alex. Just Alex. Nothing more. Erik is a work of fiction! Madame Welsh said so! She promised! "…I tried not to be freaked out because you said when anything happens that's the same, you purposely do something different. So, you know, you would never, you know, abduct me in the middle of a scene or something like that, because that would be purposely doing what was in the book. Except you haven't been doing things different. Sometimes it seems like you purposely do things that are exactly the same."

He nodded. He looked like he was waiting to see if I would say more. I didn't.

After a long time he said, "It's true, Christine. I have given up on differences. I have resigned myself to our fate."

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Okay. Stopping here for now until I work out the rest of the details. Comments? Suggestions? Please review.


	36. Chapter 36

This story is now officially finished! There will be a total of 3-4 posts after this one, and that's it! I had the day off today, and although I had a bunch of other sh!t to do, I sat around writing this ALL DAY and now I'm finished with it completely. YAY! Of course, that leaves me not knowing what I will write about next, but I'm not worried. I have finished stories before and something else always comes to me eventually. I apologize in advance to all my Phantom of the Opera friends, though, as my next post will very likely be a bit of Moby Dick fanfiction. Don't worry, though, Ahab is a dark and tragic character as well, and I promise to write him in a way that you won't totally hate him, at least not all the time. (Also it'll be a short piece. Like a two-shot.) Anyway, without further adieu, here's the damn chapter. Enjoy.

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_Our_ fate? What right was it of his to resign anything about _my_ fate? I wanted to smack him or shake him or just scream. But he was just standing there, staring at me with this stare like bottomless sorrow. The word melancholy came to mind, and Alex illustrated it perfectly.

"There… _is_ no fate," I said. I didn't sound very convincing, so I tried harder. "This is nothing like the book!"

"Isn't it?" he looked around, then up. I copied him. We were in a dim, candle-lit, damp-smelling room. Above us, music played distantly as the musical went on without me. I faced him, he faced me. I was scared inside, but somehow managing to act mostly normal. I guessed it _was_ sort of like the book in a way. And yet, it really wasn't.

"Hello? You just asked me a few minutes ago what am I doing here. If this were the book, if I were Christine and you were Erik, you'd _know_ why I was here. You'd have _brought_ me here, yourself!" What a creepy thought. Well, thank god he hadn't done that!

A bizarre string of emotions paraded across his face. First confusion, then surprise, then consternation, and finally disagreement. He didn't say anything, though.

"What? Isn't that how it would have gone if this was the same as the book?"

He looked away.

"Alex, seriously? It's opening ni—" I stopped. Alex's eyes widened. I don't know if he mirrored me as I realized it or if he worried what would happen once I noticed: _It wasn't opening night._ Tomorrow was opening night. It was only dress rehearsal. "I'm not supposed to be here, am I?"

"Christine, don't say that."

I ignored him. "I'm not supposed to be here _tonight_, am I?"

"Christine—"

"I'm not supposed to be here tonight, because I'm not supposed to be here until tomorrow, right? Oh my god, what are you—"

"Christine, I am _glad_ you are here."

"Glad? Oh you're _glad_ I'm here? Maybe so, but why don't you _look_ glad? Maybe because it's not what you _planned_?"

What could he have planned? If he really had _resigned himself to our fate_, he might be planning to cause my disappearance in front of a live audience tomorrow night. He would then bring me here and offer me some horrible choice, which, I was supposed to refuse to make. He would threaten me, tie me up. No. No, Erik only tied Christine because he thought she would kill herself.

Well, I may be a lot of things, but I've never been suicidal, so he could forget using that excuse.

Who cares if Alex doesn't think Alex can choose differently than Erik did? He can't make me act like that Christine no matter what he does. Whatever he asked for, I'd say yes so he'd settle down and act right. I could always renig on that later, tell on him and get out of whatever horrible thing he'd made me promise. I couldn't quite understand why Christine didn't do the same thing. Why not just _say_ she'd marry Erik and then _not_. I mean, if she got all the way to the church and said "I don't" instead of "I do" she'd have a priest as a witness that she was being forced. Then Erik might attempt to kill the priest, but wasn't that better than killing Raoul, the Persian and hundreds of other people? Bottom line, I don't think Christine tried hard enough. More proof it's not real, I guess. The author probably didn't feel like writing all that stuff that she could have done instead. It would have gone on forever and Raoul and the Persian would have just starved in the little room. But here there is no Raoul, there is no Persian, and I have arrived a day early.

"Christine, it's true I didn't expect to see you here tonight. Nevertheless," (again, who talks this way? I'd have said "whatever" or "but still" instead) "you are here. It is a _welcome_ surprise."

I nodded. What could I say?

He shifted forward then back again, as though he couldn't decide whether it was all right to be near me.

It was akward, all right. He bumbled around for a few minutes then invited me to sit. Squinting in the darkness, I found another prop chair. I perched on the edge of it. Chair or no, there was really not much chance I was going to relax or anything.

I wondered what happened between Erik and Christine before Raoul and the Persian arrived. All she said was that he was worse than ever, that he raved, that he gave her time to think over the prospect of marrying him. Relax, I told myself. Alex is seventeen. There's no way he'd ask for marriage. Even if he did, you have to be eighteen, I'm pretty sure, so we'd have to get our parents to agree, and hello, my parents are not going to agree to something like that, so there's my excuse.

But my mouth went dry and my heart started to thump harder again. Mom was only seventeen when she married Dad. They drove to Virginia where the law was different. Ugh. Still, there was a chance Alex didn't know about that. Of course, who was I fooling? I hadn't yet discovered anything that Alex didn't know. Too bad you can't test out of high school by proving you know the stuff. Then he'd have been gone and I wouldn't be in this stupid mess. Even so, I was still pretty sure Alex wasn't looking to get married.

I wasn't completely sure what Alex _was_ up to, but I had this really bad feeling in the pit of my stomach that the horrible thought in the back of my mind might be for real, and I couldn't figure out how to bring it up or what to do to make sure it wouldn't happen.

But this was Alex, right? He was—dare I say—my _friend_ by the light of day? So why was I so scared?

"Do you have any more candles?" Candles weren't like the book, they were like the movie. I didn't care. I swear I'm not exaggerating when I say I was filled with joy when he got up and blundered over a pile of boxes, half-tripped, grunted, wheezed, and eventually came back with more candles. Because his movements were _so_ not Erik, not stage Phantom, not even movie Phantom. And with more candles lit, I could see him better, and looking at him helped me see that he was still Alex, just as fat and almost as ridiculous-looking at usual, though I had to admit the suit or tux or whatever he was all dressed up in gave him at least an ounce of dignity his windbreaker couldn't. The word dignity entering my head made me think of funerals, and I didn't like where my thoughts led. I considered the candles, some of them sitting on top of cardboard boxes that were no doubt filled with clothing, curtains, cardboard scenery and other flammable objects. I visualized headlines: Two Students Dead in Phantom Reenactment. I debated whether to suggest putting out the candles I'd just asked for and decided against it for now. As long as we didn't knock them over, everything would be fine. Alex's skin took on a weird orange glow by the light of multiple candles, but his eyes no longer were completely dark unless he looked down. I could see well enough to tell that he'd gotten his suit dusty climbing around the boxes. I looked down at my own white dress. Whoops.

"So what now?" I said. I guess I'd gotten over how nervous I was because I was starting to feel a little bit bored.

He shrugged and shook his head a little.

He said he was glad I was there, but he looked completely miserable.

"Maybe I should go," I suggested.

He nodded, not quite in agreement, but like he hadn't completely heard what I'd said. A vague, powerless nod.

I stood. I shuffled around the table without getting too close to the candles.

"I always knew you'd go."

And that was all it took. I was pissed.

"Shit! What the hell do you want from me? I mean, you're not even talking to me! I mean, you wanna do 'not-creepy' let me tell you how. You wait until _after_ dress rehearsal, and you go out to Denny's with the cast. Like a normal person!"

He didn't even flinch when I yelled. And he waited a long time to say anything back. I hate that when you yell and someone doesn't yell back. It's like they didn't hear you! But at least he answered. He said, "It wasn't I who didn't wait, Christine."

Damn. He was right again. He'd been waiting, all right. Creepy, yes. Bizarre? No doubt. But waiting? Also true. _I_ was the one who came down here all in the middle of things. Shit!

Why had I done that? Oh yeah… I remembered. _Erik_ _is dead_.

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Reviews, please?  
Hey... 50 readers and only one comment. Did I do something wrong? Or the FFN broken again?


	37. Chapter 37

Greetings, friends! I apologize for the long wait between chapters. Now that the story is complete, I meant to post every time we got to the bottom of the first page of hits for POTO, but the Internet went down at my house, so I'm having to post from work, and I kept forgetting to bring my jump drive with me to the office. Here is the next segment for you. I hope you are continuing to enjoy.

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"It's not real," I said. "It's just a book. It's completely and totally fiction! Madame Welsh said so. I asked her. That guy made everything up. It's just a book. She's going to make us read it next year in French IV. But it's no more real than _Where the Red Fern Grows_ from fifth grade or _The Great Gatsby_ from freshman year."

He nodded. "That's most popular view."

"You disagree."

He shrugged.

"You still think it's us?"

He stared at me a long time. "You don't?"

"I don't know." And then, all the sudden, I was talking, talking, talking. "I don't know because it's not all exactly the same. I think some of it is the same because you made it the same on purpose. I mean, look. We're hiding out below the stage. As if the basement wasn't enough, now we're under the stage. And you dressed up as the Red Death. That didn't happen by accident. You asked to take me to that dance. That didn't happen by accident either—"

"It may have been an accident that you said yes," he told me with a strange, sad smile.

It was true. I didn't mean to say yes... But I wasn't letting him side track me. I went through my lists in my head. "You took me to that place and sang with me that time. And you took my by surprise, too. You didn't ask, Erik. You just grabbed me and took me. You're the one doing all of it."

His eyes lit up and he gave me this creepy-ass smirk.

"What the hell are you looking at me like that for?"

"You just called me 'Erik' without thinking about it, Christine."

I almost called him 'asshole', then. "Gah! _Alex_! That only proves you've made me freaked out enough to mix the names up. It doesn't prove it's real, it only proves you've done all the same things. Face it. You even spied on me with Ryan on the roof!"

His eyes widened at the accusation, and the candlelight reflected in them and made them glow more brightly. I wished for a second I hadn't said _roof_ because maybe it wasn't him, and maybe he hadn't known.

"But Christine, I did not tell you to go out on the roof in the first place. Or up the in rafters." I got chills. He knew about the guitar room for sure then! "I didn't tell you to wear a white domino to the dance. I almost told you to wear a black one, and then I decided to wait and see what happened, to test the theory. You and he had your colors reference, but you both wore hooded cloaks. And yes, I sang with you, but do you recall why and how? You were so timid and unsure of yourself suddenly, even though you used to be so good before. I didn't cause _that_ to happen, did I? That seemed to have been going on before I talked to you at all, no?"

What could I say? It was true.

"Really, Christine. It can't be coincidence that Ryan is considering joining the navy, can it?"

How the hell did he _know_ that? "Actually, it can be. Mr. Babik has on his wall this quote about coincidence from Isaac Asimov that—"

"And you even noticed the bit about my mother. I hadn't even considered that, but you…" He gave me a meaningful look.

How did he know about _that_?

I tried to cover my surprise. "So what _about_ your mom?" and "_Lots_ of people don't get along with their moms, you know."

He didn't argue with me, which bugged me even more than the thought that he'd found out about my lists and apparently read them.

"Okay, so some of the same stuff happened. But _you're_ not doing anything different," I told him. "You're doing the exact _same_ things even though they obviously didn't work last time." Had I suddenly decided I believed in last time? "It's like you actually _want_ it to happen again."

If things _ended_ the same way, I'd be with Ryan and Alex would be dead. I wondered how. The only funeral I can remember was for my grandmother's older sister. I don't know anyone my age who died. I don't like thinking about it. I wondered who would go to Alex's funeral and couldn't really imagine anyone there except myself. And his mom, I guess. She'd be all done up in the loveliest matching shades of black. I'd be trying really hard not to think of driving home from the art museum singing with Alex in his stupid old beat-up car. I wondered what would happen to the Beast if Alex died. No doubt Alex's mother would sell her for scrap in a heart-beat, even though she was still so obviously capable of getting from A to B. I could cry just thinking about it. I could just cry. But I didn't want Alex to see that. I didn't want Alex to think he'd gotten to me.

Besides, before things could end _that_ badly, a bunch of _other_ really bad shit had to happen, first.

"So, since I'm here a day early, does that mean we don't have to do the end of the book?"

He sighed heavily. "I don't know how it could possibly turn out any different. It was foolish of me to think that it might. Who would ever think that you would choose—"

"Choose? It's not _my_ choice. You're the one who's—"

"Oh, but Erik gives Christine a choice, recall?"

"Some choice!" I snorted.

"A good point," he conceded. "Not much of a choice at all. And that is why one could hardly expect a different ending." He seemed to fade away at the end. Not just his voice, but all of him. I wouldn't have even been surprised if he'd disappeared and I'd woke up from a really vivid dream.

But I didn't wake up. So I had to stay there and think about it.

Erik gave Christine a choice—marry me or the place explodes killing you, me, all those other people above and those two guys in the next room. It wasn't to avoid her own death that she made a different choice; she proved that when she tried to beat her brains out of her head against the wall. I decided one thing for absolute certain right then. There was absolutely _no way_ I was going to hurt myself to get out of anything, no matter what. Nothing could be so bad that it was unfixable. I wondered if Alex could be convinced of that, too. In the meantime, I would probably agree to almost anything if someone's life were at stake.

"Well, you know, for a supposed genius it was a really poorly thought-out idea, though." Alex looked up like he was at least mildly interested in continuing the conversation. "I mean, to kidnap her like that. How could someone as brilliant as he was supposed to have been come up with something as utterly dumb as 'that'll make her agree to marry me'?"

Alex sighed again more heavily than before. "You're right." He looked deflated. "It was a very bad idea. I guess he couldn't think of anything else. It's not like he had any practice or anything. 'One makes what rendez-vous one can' right?"

It wasn't like Alex had had any practice either. Of course, you'd think he could think up a better place to get ideas than from some old book, wouldn't you? Or maybe not. I remembered the class's comments on _Romeo and Juliet,_ the _The Great Gastby,_ on _Cyrano_. None of those turned out particularly well, and yet it seemed people were still doing the same old crap today.

But Christine did agree to stay. It was _Erik_ who screwed up, if marriage to Christine was what he wanted. She'd agreed to it. I wondered why he let her go. Maybe he thought she was crying because she didn't want to be there rather than crying for him. Of course, by the time he repeats the story to the Persian he seemed to understand. Maybe it's just another one of those stupid flaws because the author didn't think it through.

So, suppose I agreed to whatever Alex wanted me to to do. Would he then reverse my choice, send me away and… But even if so, what choice did _I_ have?

I looked around. "Alex, tell me you don't have a grasshopper and a scorpion down here somewhere."

He didn't answer, so I asked again. He shrugged. "I don't have the grasshopper and the scorpion down here tonight, Christine. Why do you ask? What would you do with a grasshopper and a scorpion, Christine?"

"I guess I'd turn the scorpion."

The left side of his mouth twitched into a pathetic attempt at a smile. "Really, Christine? So sure are you? Without even hearing the choice first?"

"It doesn't matter what the choice is if people's lives are at stake. Then again, I guess they aren't, are they? I mean, you can't get barrels of gunpowder like that these days."

"No, you can't," he said softly. His right hand fidgeted with his left cuff. He examined it closely and wouldn't look at me.

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Okay, people, **for a faster next chapter, blow me away with reviews**, okay? I know it's the end of summer and the start of school and all, so I'm not taking the lack of response to last chapter personally, but I'd TOTALLY love to hear what are you thinking at this point. Impressions? Predictions? Hopes/wishes?

And for those of you who HAVE recently commented, especially those who asked that I post the two different endings, I will absolutely do so. The trouble is, in fixing the ending to make it make sense, I irrevocably changed the original ending so it's not in tact as it once was. I'll post the official new ending, then I'll separately post how it would have been different with any specific lines I may still have. Unless I get inspired to re-write it again. And to whomever suggested they could be Alex/Christine fan fiction in the future, by all means, GO FOR IT. I'd love to read it! I may even post Alex/Christine deleted scenes and newly thought up scenes in the future after this story is ended.


	38. Chapter 38

Again, I'm a little later than I wanted to be in posting, but much faster than I used to be. Thanks very much to all who reviewed last chapter. So many wonderful comments makes me regret that I could not post yesterday or the day before that, and push myself to post now before today slips away and it's suddenly tomorrow. (Crap! It happened again! It's now Monday night and this still isn't posted and I started trying to clean up the typos on SATURDAY. I'm so sorry it's late!

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I tried to ignore the fact that he hadn't sounded particularly convincing about the lack of gunpowder. It doesn't matter if he's convincing or not, I told myself. You just _can't_ get gunpowder these days. At least, not barrels and barrels of it. And even if you could, not if you were under eighteen. So no worries. "So, yeah, like, if no one's life was in danger, I guess I'd have to hear the choice first. But I'm pretty sure I'd turn the scorpion." I thought this over for a moment. "Wait. I'm not doing anything dangerous. And no gross like stuff you'd see on Fear Factor. I'm not eating anything weird, either, so forget that."

Alex turned further away. "Yes, forget it. I won't ask you to do _anything gross_, Christine."

"Yeah, you'd better not." Something in the back of my brain was screaming that I was missing something, something big. I tried to focus on it. It slipped away just after revealing that it was related to something some not-very-sympathetic teacher said about Alex. Who _was_ that? _When?_

"Never mind, Christine."

"No, seriously, at least tell me what the choice _is_, Alex!" It was Ms. Trudell. _What_ had she said exactly?

"You're free to go, of course."

He was setting me free? A day early, without the Raoul-character showing up, without a fight and without even telling me what the choice was? Either Alex was back to trying to do the opposite of the book or something was very, very wrong. He didn't seem to care how the story ended now. He didn't seem to care about _anything_.

And if he didn't care at all, that meant he wasn't holding me here. I considered just walking out. I wondered how long I'd been here. I was in costume, so I wasn't wearing a watch or carrying a cell phone. But I didn't walk out because I figured if I left without figuring out why Alex was down there in the first place, there was a pretty good chance something weird was going to happen the following night.

Whatever he was planning was most definitely for tomorrow night, so I had less than a day to figure it out. In the meantime, I certainly had no good guesses as to why he was hiding out below the stage during dress rehearsal, unless he was practicing something for opening night, too. Practicing _and preparing. _But_ what_? I had a pretty good idea, and I didn't like it at all.

"Um… Alex?"

_How do you ask such a question?_

He rolled his eyes up to me without moving his head. It made him look a little spookier.

Why hadn't I listened when Ms. Harmon and Mr. Miller went over this shit with us?

"Nevermind."

But seriously. Could _you_ just go home and forget about it? I just couldn't. I mean, how would I sleep? Now, I admit, it probably would have been a really good idea to get out of that creepy under stage storage area, first. I don't know if he would have gone with me if I'd invited him above because I didn't think of it until later, but getting out of that creepy place should have been a precursor to any question. Speaking of which: _You _ask_ it. _Any_ way you can._

But I couldn't just drop it. I mean, there was the way he was acting, the way the book ended, his obviously not-that-great life... There were so many things piling up that I really probably ought _to_ ask if I didn't want to be sitting in my bedroom regretting it later when it was too late. But how? A vague memory: _there is a _wrong_ way to ask it._

"So, let's say you're right."

He barely acknowledged me.

"Let's say you're right that we're supposed to completely relive the book. Didn't you say we repeat it until we get it right?"

He shrugged disinterestedly. "I might've said that."

"Okay. So let's say you're right. How do we get it right?"

He shrugged again. "All my ideas have proven useless, Christine."

"Well, in order to do it right, you have to ask yourself what went wrong in the book."

No response.

"I mean, we can argue whether what Christine did was right or not, but only Christine could change what Christine does. What about what _Erik_ did wrong. What should Erik have done differently?"

Heavy sigh. What? Was I freaking _boring_ him?

"Seriously, what do you think Erik would have regretted the most about what he did?"

Alex seemed to hunch into himself in a way that made me wonder if he was listening and reacting or maybe not listening at all.

"People got _hurt,_ Alex. No one died, but people got hurt." (I didn't even remember until later that someone had died-Raoul's brother!) "Maybe to do it _right_, you should make an effort to make sure you _don't hurt anyone_."

I got a non-committal grunt for that one. After a moment he added, "Even when I don't hurt anyone, they never leave me alone."

I wondered if Erik felt the same way. From the book, it sure seemed like no one really bothered Erik. But I didn't have to ask Alex who _his_ 'they' were because it was obvious. "But what does that have to do with me? And what does it have to do with why Erik abducted Christine? Really?"

He didn't answer.

I wished I had my notebook with me. I counted off on my fingers instead. "Okay, so the school is the Opera. It takes both the boiler room and this place to account for the cellars. The dance was the masquerade ball. The roof is the roof. Phantom is Faust. That makes tomorrow night the final scene of the book. I'm Christine and… _you're Erik_…." I trailed off.

It was really hard to go on with that train of thought, since I knew how Erik ended up, so I switched subjects. "When I told you I finished the book, you wanted to know my thoughts." He blinked at me. "Well, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"Okay, fine. I didn't like the way it ended. Something was all wrong. If he loved her—" (I absolutely refused to say names in the same sentence as that word if I could help it!) "—wouldn't he have treated her better? What's with all the yelling at her? And he knew from the last time she didn't want to be kept like a prisoner. So why try it again if he wanted her to love him? But then when he finally gets what he wants, he doesn't keep her. It doesn't make any damn sense!" It hit me then: "Unless he never expected to keep her in the first place. He just wanted an excuse to—" _Oh my god!_ "—blow the whole place up! He was sure she'd turn the grasshopper and that would be the end of them both. And the whole place. And all those other people, too!" A very elaborate murder/suicide that he could rationalize left him without guilt. _Not me. Christine blew up the Opera._ It was _Christine_ who caused her own death, and Erik's, and all the others. Oh, how _twisted_! At the same moment the thought I'd been trying so hard to remember surfaced—that just about anyone could download instructions to make something called a pipe bomb. Or at least, just about anyone could back in 1999. There were probably worse things that blow up even better—I mean worse—by now!

Alex had turned away from me. In the flickering candlelight I could see he faced toward the wall behind the chairs. He had his right hand up; it might have been over his mouth.

"Alex!" I crossed the small space we occupied together, turned him around by his shoulders, and gave him a small shove. "Alex, if we're them, tomorrow night's audience is all those people!"

His face was as still as stone.

"Alex, what's going to happen to all those people?" I shook him and shoved him again. Then I remembered the candles, the dangerously flammable stuff between us and the door, and the possible headlines. I forced myself to calm down. No, that's a lie. I _couldn't_ calm down. I forced myself act like I was calm, to pretend it, to move slowly and deliberately all fake-y calm.

But I couldn't hold still. I paced, carefully, the area between the wall and the boxes—an area it appeared Alex had cleared especially for tomorrow night, a narrow strip of the room that used to contain boxes, which were now piled up on top of the boxes on the other side, which blocked the view of the chairs from the door. "You'd have to take me away in the middle of the show. I'd disappear during the first act if you followed it exactly. If everything else went exactly right there'd be Ryan and some other guy looking for me, but that probably wouldn't happen because no one would notice that I'm missing because I'm only in the ensemble. You knew that, right? That I'm not playing the lead tomorrow? You'd have to have known that if you were planning something…"

His expression revealed something disturbing.

"Unless you had some way of ensuring that I would be… just like the book! Some dirty trick against Sheila or something! So let's say I'm the lead. Everyone goes looking for me. They'd find us in a moment, I bet! You can't possibly believe that I would be missing until the next day! My parents would be worried sick!"

I paused in my pacing to glare at him from the far side of the room where I could almost peek around the boxes and see the door through which I'd come. "Did you even _think_ about the people who care about me? Are you _insane_?" I could see the door. He was on the other side of a table with a candle. If I bolted, he would be slow to follow me. It was a short sprint through the next room, but clutter blocked my way. I was faster, but he was heavier. If I ran, I'd better make a clean get away, because if he caught me, he could overpower me easily with his weight, I bet. I'm pretty fast, but I doubted my footing in these shoes.

He shrugged. "Probably," he said. He was breathing heavily, I noticed. With a whistling sound on the exhale. Once I noticed it, my focus shifted completely to that. It was like I could only pay attention to one thing, and which thing I needed to worry about the most kept shifting. I noticed again that the little room we were in smelled of mold and mildew; it was dusty as hell, and due to my request, now included several lit candles, some of which gave off a little puff of smoke every now and then. I visualized headlines indicating Alex's tragic accidental death below the stage due to no one's noticing and running for medical attention—a death I would feel responsible for the rest of my life if I ran away and left him there. _Erik is dead._ Not a murder suicide, but a badly timed asthma attack and a panicky friend who read a creepy old book and overreacted. The thought of Alex dead softened me. I thought again of the little funeral, me there with his mother. Who else would go? Not the student body, that's for sure. I reassured myself with the fact that Erik never blew up the Opera house and told myself that Alex's untimely death was the end of the book I was trying to prevent. _I stayed._ Just like Christine.

So I went back to th plot where I'd left off. "So maybe Ryan would come looking for me. Maybe not." Did it matter? If he did, according to the book, he would fall into some contraption Alex had built to kill him. Missing only one on the PSAT aside, I doubted even Alex could pull off that off in a school. But it didn't matter, either, because in the book Raoul didn't die. He also didn't rescue Christine. He's irrelevant. If anyone came to look for _me_, it would probably be a teacher or a parent, and it would _not_ be pretty when I got found.

But whether someone came or not, it didn't really matter, did it? Because in the end, Christine made her choice to save _everyone_, not just Raoul, didn't she? And Erik _let her go_. Then he _died_.

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I apologize that this is not QUITE as long as it should be. The next part sort of has to all go together or it's disjointed, so I broke it here. Comments, please? (And for the record, I will be out of town Thursday and Friday, for my husband's job. That means while he's at a seminar all day long for two days, I will sitting in the hotel room. I COULD go explore the city we'll be in, but I don't want to. Any guesses what I'll be doing instead?


	39. Chapter 39

Hey everyone! Here we are getting a little bit closer to the end of the story. I believe that after this there are two more posts. Maybe three. I will miss you all when this is over, but I'm also sure I'll think up something else to write soon enough. Thank you for reading. It's been quite a ride!

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"You know, Alex, I don't think you should stay down here any longer," I said.

He rolled his eyes.

"No, I mean, it's like, not exactly easy to breathe or anything. Do you have your inhaler?"

"Don't play games, Christine."

"Er-Alex," (Damn it, I almost did it again!) "I'm not playing games. You're _wheezing_. I'm scared." I was _not_ screwing around. There was a time when I'd been scared _of_ him, but mostly tonight I was scared _for_ him. My head was filled with death, death, death. Death by suicide? Death by accidental fire? Death by some terroristic controlled explosion? Death by asthma. Or by that other thing I hadn't yet learned to remember the name of by that night?

"Yes, I have it Christine." He drew something out of his pocket and held it up where I could see the blue plastic container. Then he thrust his hand back into his pocket. "Does that make you feel better?"

"A little," I told him. _Grudgingly_. "Could you freaking use it or something?"

"Not necessary," he responded tightly. A moment later he must have changed his mind though. He turned away from me like it would kill him for me to know that I was right.

"Jesus, Alex, let's just get out of here. You could make yourself sick." I just couldn't make myself say 'die' out loud.

He laughed at that. A weird creepy laugh that didn't invite me to laugh along with him. Then he started coughing and puffed on his inhaler again while I panicked nearly enough to scream. "Who cares?" he said.

"What?" Oh, I _heard_ him all right. The word just popped out of my mouth.

"What's the difference?" He slumped back into the chair with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. His hair made a curtain so I could not see his face.

I guess I lied a little when I said I didn't listen to Mr. Miller and Ms. Harmon's classroom visit talk-things. I sort of half-listened while writing a note or doodling or something. I didn't completely tune it out. I learned a little. Certainly enough to know that he'd just come about as close to begging me to ask him as he was going to come. So I knew what I had to do. I _had_ to ask. But I felt both stupid and afraid. I told myself not to be stupid. Alex had either thought of it or not already. My asking the question wasn't going to put the idea in his head if it wasn't already there, and if it was there, my question wouldn't make him do it any faster and it might give me a chance to stop him.

But Alex was still wrapped up in the novel to the extent that we were still below the stage. He'd flat out told me to go, so I guessed we'd fastforwarded to Faust already. Or maybe he'd decided to switch to the musical for my sake. If I hesitated, would he scream at me to go? I can go, I can go. What does that mean? Christine _agreed_ to Erik's terms, then Erik told her she could leave. She agreed to stay, so she had to go. Before that she wanted to go, so he made her stay. I was still missing something. You can marry the boy whenever you wish. Erik had maybe come to understand that Christine really did love Raoul and was not going to love him the same way, no matter what. Did Christine really love Raoul? I didn't think so. The relationship seemed awfully childish. I wondered whether I was right or whether I'd projected Ryan onto Raoul for so long that I couldn't tell the book and reality apart. And it occurred to me that I was not in love with Ryan, despite how my heart pounded when he kissed me the first time.

And did Erik really love Christine? Well, who can tell. Adults are always saying that love means you put the other persons needs first. Usually they're saying it after making some big sacrifice so you can have some expensive thing you want, but they're still saying it. I filed the thought away to decide if I agreed with it later on. I couldn't decide if Christine loved Erik, either, but they way she kept going back sure made it seem that way. She didn't want to admit it, though. And no wonder!

Generally, they feel relieved once someone asks, Ms. Harmon once told our class. _Seriously_? That was hard as hell to imagne. But she's the counselor, not me, right? What the hell do I know? Only that I am the only one here, so I'm the one who has to do something. Alex was breathing normally again, I thought. Or, more quietly anyway. I knew about as much about asthma as I did about suicide intervention, so there was no telling if that was a good sign or a bad sign. I decided I definitely needed help. Unfortunately, at the same instant, I decided that I couldn't possibly run for help because in the five minutes I might be gone, anything could happen.

But before she left she promised to return when he is dead, to bury him. With the ring. It occurred to me that Christine shows more love for Erik than any other character does for any other character. Erik frees Christine because he loves her, and even though he dies without her, he knows she is happy. Raoul attempts to rescue Christine because he loves her, but it's selfish—he'll miss her if he does not get her back. But Christine returns and buries Erik after he's dead, when she can get nothing in return for it, not even the words 'thank you.' _I am dying,_ he told the Daroga. He knew he was dying. Dying of what? Leroux doesn't tell. _Dying of love, _Erik tells Daroga.

The fact remains that only real-life people I've ever heard of who died because they loved someone died by suicide.

I left my spot in view of the door and moved toward him. "Alex, what's supposed to happen after that?"

He didn't respond.

"Alex," I eased myself into the chair across from him. "Seriously. It has to end somewhere. The book ended. I didn't like the way the book ended." I glanced over my shoulder to the place I'd been standing when I was planning to leave.

"Christine left. We don't have to wait until tomorrow night if you want me to leave. I could go…" I pointed. "Right now. But before I can, I need to know what happens after Christine leaves."

Alex took a deep breath and ran his palms over his face before pushing his hair back and looking up at me. He met my eyes directly for the first time since I'd been down there. "Christine is happy."

"Okay." I nodded. "So… what happens to Erik?"

"Doesn't matter." I noticed his hands were clenched fists.

"So, whether it matters or not, I'd like to know."

"Erik knows he made Christine happy for once."

Did he? Did he really? How can anyone know for sure? Mr. Leroux did not say that he interviewed Christine. "Okay. And what _would have_ happened if Christine had stayed?"

He shook his head hard. "Not possible. She loves the boy."

"Maybe so. Maybe not. What happens to Erik?"

No response, yet again. He was looking down again, his eyes obscured in shadows and hair.

"Alex." I stared at him until he finally looked up again. "Alex. Erik _died_."

"And the world rejoiced," he said with a wide but unhappy smile.

"That's not true."

His features returned to normal. "You're right," he conceded. He nodded slowly, seriously. "The world didn't notice one way or the other."

My nerves couldn't possibly take any more. "Oh my god, Alex. You're not thinking of hurting yourself, are you?" Shit! After the words popped out of my mouth, I realized I had said it exactly wrong, made the question negative, made it too easy to say shrug it off, say of course not, don't be silly.

But Alex gave me no answer at all. At least, he gave me no verbal answer, anyway. He looked away. I felt like I had an answer after all.

"Jesus, God, Alex, promise me you won't do anything like that."

"Can't promise anything, Christine."

I got frantic. "What was the choice, Alex?"

"Go on, Christine."

"I won't go anywhere until you tell me the choice."

"Doesn't matter anymore."

"Oh yes it does."

"It never mattered, Christine."

"It matters to me." Nicely. Sweetly. Like I care. "Tell me." Frustrated. "You tell me right now!" Great. Now I just sounded pissed. "What would have happened tomorrow? You'd have brought me here and asked me for _what_?" I wondered how he could possibly plan to replicate the book. He'd could have downloaded Internet instructions for blowing shit up or he could just be planning to go drown himself in a lake or something. One was as bad as the other. I stood and made a grab for him but stopped short because of the candle. I looked at the space between us and tried to figure out if I could pull him all the way to the door. Deciding it wasn't possible, I lapsed into whining. "Seriously, Alex, what's the choice? Please tell me. It's not fair. I read the book like you asked. If you want me to go away, fine, I'll go away, but please, I'm only asking you for this one thing. Just tell me how it ends this time. You were going to give me some choice, right? What is it? Come on, please. Give me one chance to get it right. If I get it right, it's… I make a present to all those people," I pointed up. "A present of their lives, right? Alex, I already told you I'd turn the scorpion if I had the chance, Alex. I told you…" I was hysterical and on the verge of tears, but I had to force my emotion back down to try to hear him when he talked, so softly he spoke.

"You really did it," I think he said. Or something like that.

"Huh?"

"You really read the whole thing."

I sort of almost forgot the seriousness of the situation. "Of course I read the whole thing. I told you I did. My god, did you think I lied?"

"Erik wouldn't have gone through with it, you know."

"What?"

"He wouldn't have allowed Christine to turn the grasshopper. She would have gotten hurt. He didn't want that. He didn't care what happened to himself, but he wouldn't have let her do that, not when it would have hurt her, too."

"Hell, he almost turned it himself, Alex. He had his hand on it. She was taking too long so he was going to turn it—"

"I don't think he would have done it." His voice was calm and sure. "He only _said_ he would. He was bluffing, as they say. If he really wanted to to destroy the Opera house, he could have done it any time. If he wanted to destroy himself, he could have done so any time. But he couldn't not have done either with Christine present."

"Then why all the drama? Why all the 'I'll turn this if you don't turn that first' bullshit?

"He just wanted her to know how he felt. He just wanted her... to notice him..."

"No way. No chance. That's ridiculous. She'd _already_ noticed him. They'd been hanging out for months! She'd gone away and come back and done all sorts of things with him."

"It was all fake. In the end, she was still terrified to even look at him."

"She told him she wasn't. She told him she was thinking of what a genius he was."

"Yes, but it was all lies. She said that, but after that she said terrible things about him." He was gesturing wildly and I was just glad he was finally reacting at all. It's as though the story was the only thing that gave him any life at all. "She told that boy she was afraid of him. Everything Christine said to Erik was a lie." It could have been Alex or Erik speaking, since Erik talks that way anyway. "She was still afraid of him. She was never going to love him. He _knew_ that. Accepted that her place was so high above his. He… he just wanted… for her to admit the possibility. He just wanted her to consider if there was even a chance. That was enough." He was out of breath again, but maybe with excitement this time.

"Yes. Okay. You're right." I'll agree with you if you'll just stop scaring me. "It's possible. There's a chance. Yes. Okay." I grabbed both his hands with both of mine over the table. "A chance of what? What did you want me to say there was a chance of?"

He looked down at our hands like he was thunderstruck. When he finally spoke his voice was soft and far away. "I was going to ask you to prom, Christine."

* * *

So, the ending of the story is not only written now, but it's been edited and cleaned up, so all that remains is to post the chapters as you guys finish reading the ones before. You know what to do!


	40. Chapter 40

OMG, we are almost done! I debated a long time this evening about whether to post this chapter now or increase the suspense by dragging it out until tomorrow or wait at least a few more hours and see if two more reviews squeak in or what not, but I've decided that those of you who read and reviewed seemed really eager for the ending, so I'm posting the next chapter. It's not the end, end, end yet, but we're really, really close. So here it is. I hope you enjoy.

* * *

"Jesus _Christ!_" Before I could control myself, I'd released his hands, gotten up, and spun away from the table all in one motion. "Shit!" I was facing the boxes with my hands over my face.

"You... don't actually have to go, of course."

"_That's_ what you wanted?"

"It isn't realistic, I know. I only wanted Christine to consider—"

"That's _all_ you fucking wanted?"

"And I've upset you yet again. Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I glanced over my shoulder to see him smacking himself in the head with real force.

"Jesus!" I squeezed between him and the table and grabbed his wrists. "Fucking stop. Just—" I couldn't make the words come out. "God, seriously, Alex? _Prom_? Do you _hear_ yourself, Alex?" I let go of him and when he didn't start literally beating himself up again, I backed away.

"It wouldn't be so bad, Christine. It's not like last time, not like asking for marriage, which lasts forever, or at least until death. Prom is mere hours, you know." He rose and gestured convincingly. "I wouldn't expect you to stay the night or something like others would. 'Christine is a good girl,' this I know, have always known. No, this would be only prom. Just a few hours at a dance. You wouldn't even have to let me drive you home. I have had the joy of driving you home once. Twice is too much to ask—"

"Alex—"

"No, no, wait, Christine." He lumbered around the little table and came closer to me, but not so close as to touch me. "I would ask so little. Just dinner, perhaps. Just sit during dinner. It wouldn't be so bad if Christine danced with others. Christine is so beautiful, after all, everyone wishes to dance with Christine. Or no, not even dinner, perhaps. Just… just pose for the picture, that would be enough. Just… the picture. Yes. That's all I would ask. Then I would have the picture always. You know those pictures they do, the ones where you stand in the line and they take your picture—"

I knew exactly what he meant. For twelve dollars—or like, twenty-five or more probably at prom—they'll take your picture with your date and give you two copies in cheap cardboard frames a couple weeks later at school.

"Alex!"

He stopped for a moment and looked at me. "I know it's stupid, Christine, to want one of those stupid pictures. But my mother would be so happy, you know, to have a picture of me at a dance, with a girl. Of course, you're not just any girl, Christine, I know that. You are the most special…" He closed his eyes. "Yes, it's ridiculous to set one's hopes so high, and yet, only Christine is kind enough to even consider…! But it was so foolish to think that it was possible. I just grew so tired of lying to her always, going out driving around alone and telling her I was with friends at fun places. 'Why don't they ever call,' she always wanted to know. 'Why don't they ever come over?' Christine, do you know how happy she was the day you came over? I meant to tell you that. I'm sorry I was such as ass that day. I acted like I wasn't even pleased to see you. I _was_ pleased to see you. I just… I felt… Nevermind. There is no excuse. I obviously don't know how to behave. I'm so sorry. Will you ever forgive me? No, it's not necessary—"

"Alex!" I threw my hands down as I yelled.

He literally jumped, then moved a pace away as though he expected me to hit him.

"Seriously, shut _up _a second, will you?"

He froze, his face wounded, hurt by my tone. A wisp of my hair came loose and fell across my eyes reminding me of how I look like _her_. I tugged the rest of it free and let it hang. Christine's hair was loose in that final scene, wasn't it? The one where she turns the scorpion? But I'm a day early and the figurines aren't here, so there is nothing for me to turn.

I've shown up a night early and messed everything up. Tomorrow I bet there would have been two little figurines in boxes. Beware the grasshopper, Christine. It hops jolly high. Senior year I would learn that it was a pun. Today it was just a strange line out of stranger book that I wasn't sure if I was glad to have read or wished I'd never heard of. But Alex was waiting for me to respond, to say something. _Erik, I have turned the scorpion_.

I raised my hands and let them fall to my sides helplessly. "Why not just ask?"

He shrugged. "He knew she'd say no."

I thought this over. It was difficult to imagine what Christine might have said if Erik had approached her as an ordinary but ugly man, simply presented himself and asked for her hand in marriage. An image of Alex poking me in the back with a pencil came to mind. I turned and said "What?" "Will you go to the prom with me?" he said. I had to admit that I really couldn't delude myself that I would have said sure, why not?

But suppose he'd asked me tonight after rehearsal, at Denny's with the cast. Would I have said yes? Suppose he asked me a week ago when I was looking for him all over campus and worrying at not finding him. Suppose he'd asked me while standing behind me as we looked out the window of his bedroom the day I returned his jacket. If he'd asked me on the way home after Mardi Gras when I was wondering what was going on and worrying myself sick, what would I have said then?

"Alex, jeez. You didn't have to completely recreate _The Phantom of the Opera_. I mean, hell, if you'd just asked me…" I looked around the room and then at him in disbelief. "I'd have said okay."

No amount of Leroux-reading prepared me for what happened next.

He put both hands over his face and burst into heavy sobs.

I reached out and pulled his hands to me.

In the book, Erik's hands are long, thin, and bony; they smell like death.

_My_ Erik's hands are the complete opposite: chubby, calloused, and dry. But his fingers are long. Perfect for playing the violin and the piano. I can remember the day I heard him playing the piano on stage and watched from the audion. He didn't know I was there, but his music thrilled me. I can feel again the rush of emotion I felt that day. Holding his hands, I feel the rough patches of abnormally thick skin. It doesn't bother me now. I squeeze his hands. His tears spill over and stream down his face running into the lines made by his oversized cheeks.

He cried openly a moment before falling forward towards me and slipping to his knees. I took advantage of the moment he let go of my hands to wipe my eyes, because I was crying too. Alex wrapped his arms around my waist and squeezed me hard. I felt out of breath. I put my arms around his shoulders. He was taller than I had previously realized, I noted. I pushed his hair back from his face, ran my fingers through it and over it and over the bare places where there was no hair. I didn't have to lean far to put my cheek against the top of his head. I could feel his sobs throughout my body. Poor Alex. Poor Erik? Whatever. I don't care what his name is. I slid to my knees and faced him. He noticed I was crying and tried to wipe the mascara from my eyes with the edges of his sleeves. I laughed through my tears and offered him the sleeves of the mirror bride costume, then put my arms around him once again. Our eyes met, our hands upon one another's shoulders. Without a thought, I suddenly learned forward and put my lips against his forehead, realizing the link to the novel only after he had begun to cry still harder.

I will tell you that crying is not nearly as romantic as literature and movies make it out to be. I was thankful there was only candlelight, but even in the candlelight I could make out the red puffiness of his eyes and the grotesque expression of his mouth as he sobbed. I couldn't have looked any better. I peeled his wet hair from the places where it stuck to his cheeks leaving mascara fingerprints and smudges on his cheeks from when I'd wiped my own eyes. I laughed and tried to clean up the mess with my sleeves, ruining them in the process. "We look like shit," I told him.

"God, no, Christine," he moaned. "You're so beautiful."

"No, Alex. No." And it seemed too silly to say aloud, but I think he knew that my response was something like no, you are. I didn't know what else to say so I just stroked his hair and I kissed his face all over.

We remained that way a long time. My tears dried long before his. Of course, one cannot practically remain on one's knees for such a time. He sat, then, his knees drawn up, and I sat beside him. I noticed that even though he was in formal wear for dress rehearsal—yes, he was the missing first violinist!—he was wearing his ratty old converse hightops. I tugged one of the tongues and said "Silly!" He put his head on my shoulder and cried still more. I sat beside him with my arm around his shoulders while he cried and cried until my butt was cold and sore from the concrete floor.

This is not the 19th century, so of course neither of us had a handkerchief, and without a purse or a backpack, I couldn't even produce a grubby Kleenex; we wiped our faces on each other's sleeves again, and at last he got to his feet shakily and offered me his hand to help me up.

I took it.

"Of course you don't really have to go, you know," he said, blowing out a nearby candle.

"Alex—" I tried to argue.

He wiped his nose on his sleeve and offered me a halfhearted smile. "Just like the book."

"No." I felt sick inside. Here I'd been so sure this was the happy ending, and now Alex was sending me away, just like Erik had? But I knew I couldn't possibly live with myself if in three weeks I received a notice that Alex was dead.

"But Alex—"

He put his finger on my lips. I noticed he wasn't afraid to touch me now. "Don't. I say don't. Just let it end here. Go. He sets her free. She goes."

_And he dies._ I chewed my lip. "Maybe she doesn't."

"Don't, Christine. We've finished it. Just let it end."

"No!" I insisted. "_You_ said we had to do it over until we get it _right_. If I go away, that's the same ending as the book. That's not getting it right that's—"

"It's different. You were right, Christine. No one got hurt this time."

"It's not enough. That's not the only thing wrong with the ending. You asked me if I really read it, Alex, but now I feel like asking you the same thing. Did you really, _really_ read it? _Carefully_? Did you pay attention at the end? She _agreed_ to _stay_. _He_ sent her away. Maybe she wanted to stay. How would we know? No one interviewed her. She wanted to stay, but he told her to go. She couldn't disobey him, could she? Or maybe… Maybe she even came back." I knew this was foolishness. Erik was dead three weeks later, and that was the only time she came back. But Alex is not Erik, and I am not that Christine.

"Maybe she wanted to be with him all along," I continued. "Maybe she was just afraid of what people would say, or maybe she didn't know what to tell Raoul. Maybe she was just young and confused. Or maybe she was just... scared. No, not of him, not of his face, but of her _feelings_, of what it _means_ to love someone. Maybe she was afraid that if she admitted that she loved him she'd have to take responsibility for her actions. Maybe the tragedy is that she would have said yes all along and he just didn't have the faith to ask her. Maybe, if he had just asked her... instead of playing stupid games... maybe, she would have gone to the prom with him in the first place. Because if she's worthy of him at all, then she isn't the type to care about something stupid. Like what he looks like."

He stared at me with this baffled expression.

"What?" My tone was irritated, I know. I was just wiped out emotionally.

"Christine... You said... maybe she would have _gone to the prom_ with him."

I cracked up laughing.

"Did they even _have_ proms back then?" He smiled slowly, and tears rolled down his cheeks again.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know, probably not. But if they did, she'd have gone. Because she wanted to. All along. And she didn't want him to send her away at the end. That's where the ending went wrong, Alex. That's the part you have to fix. Don't… don't tell me to go now, Alex."

His mouth fell open in absolute disbelief. After a long, long silence he said, "Never!" and threw his arms around me so tightly I couldn't breathe. He pressed his body against mine and his face against mine and swayed side to side, holding me.

* * *

Reviews please? I don't really have to ask at this point in the story, do I? No, but seriously, please leave me detailed reactions if you can, as I really love to hear how you feel, especially at important points like this one.


	41. Chapter 41

Wow! How's everyone doing after that last chapter? Okay, good, no one's mad at me, right? I figured I'd have riots on my hands if I'd killed him off or anything, huh? Okay... but even so, all is not ending "happy ever after" just yet...

* * *

"She's in here, Mr. A!" I heard a voice yell. It was Mark. I tapped Alex on the shoulder and tried to pull away. He held on tightly. "She's with some guy!"

"What?" That was Mr. Akers. And he sounded pissed as hell.

"Alex! Let go a sec!" I couldn't breath. My voice was barely a whisper. I grabbed one of his arms and tried to pry myself free, but it was too late. Florescent lights came on. I squinted in the light and marveled that there were lights down here. I guess I should have known every room in the school would have them. I wondered who things would have been different if I had turned them on an hour ago. Akers came around the side of the boxes and stopped and stared. Alex had his back to the door and was pretty oblivious, obviously, but I was facing that way. Mr. A. looked me right in the eyes. "Go back up, Mark." Mark didn't move. He gawked. Akers cursed aloud.

"Mr. A!" I managed to squeak out through squeezed lungs.

Whether Alex noticed my distress or heard what I'd said I'm not sure, but he released me immediately and slipped back behind the boxes into the cleared area. Unfortunately, this had the effect of making it look like we'd really been up to no good.

I drew a deep, desperate breath. "I can explain!" I wheezed. A second later I realized how that sounded and cracked up laughing. "I didn't mean…" I couldn't stop laughing. I can't help it. I laugh when I'm nervous, and I'd been scared to death for what, _days,_ now? I laughed so hard I couldn't catch my breath. While I was making a fool of myself, I was dimly aware that Alex was moving around the area behind the boxes blowing out the candles. And maybe hiding them in his pockets or something.

Akers was furious. And suspicious. "Christine, have you been drinking?"

"What? No!" I cried out, still laughing. "I didn't—I don't—oh my god!" I took a deep breath.

"Upstairs! Now!" Akers jerked his thumb toward the door. I didn't move. No way in hell was I leaving without Alex who was trying to stay hidden from view by the boxes. Akers advanced toward him, "And you—" And that was all he said. He just stopped like someone flipped a switch and turned him off.

I moved back into the open space so I could see what happened. In the light it was very, very obvious that Alex had been crying. I got self-conscious and rubbed my eyes again, even though it was obviously too late. Mr. Akers looked from Alex to me. He looked at me intently for a moment and his face softened. He looked back at Alex again.

"We can explain," I whispered. "_Please_."

Akers whirled around and diverted his frustration "Go up_stairs_, Mark! I'm not going to tell you again!"

Mark turned and wandered out slowly, curiousity painted all over his face. He looked back over his shoulder at me twice.

Mr. Akers waited until he was out of sight and presumably gone before giving us five minutes to convince him not to call _the police_ in _addition_ to our parents, about which there was apparently no question. While Mr. A.'s eyes bored into Alex, I started deciding which parents to tell Dad, what parts might be safe for Alex to tell his mother, how to explain why we were down here with enough truth to make it believable, but little enough that they didn't cart Alex off to juvenile for abduction and terroristic threats or something. Alex didn't make a case for himself at all; he surrendered quite easily by telling Mr. Akers it was all his fault and he'd be happy to place the calls himself to say so.

"No!" I said. I couldn't leave it like that. "Alex! We have to tell him _the truth_," I said. At least, _part_ of the truth, I meant. I widened my eyes at him. Please, God, let him be able to read my expression. His eyes were fearful, but he didn't object. He put himself entirely in my hands as Erik had Christine's.

"Look, Alex, I know you didn't want anyone to know, but this is Mr. Akers. We can trust him." Sarcastic face, Alex. See it. Please. I continued. I turned to Mr. Akers. "He's got stuff going on, Mr. A.. Like family stuff and stuff with some kids who bother him during school. He was upset, that's all. I thought he was like, _really_ upset. You know? I was worried about him. That's all. I was trying to talk to him during intermission but he didn't want to talk to me so he walked away. I got carried away, I guess. I followed him. I couldn't come tell you because it was dress rehearsal and you said no interruptions for any reason, so I just followed him. He came down here where I guess he thought I wouldn't follow, but I did when we got all the way back here, eventually, we talked. We've just been talking. And we got upset. I'm going through stuff, too." I squeezed out the few tears I had left, pretended I was trying not to cry, wiped them away with my fingertips. "We didn't do anything bad. I promise."

Mr. Akers decided I probably wasn't on drugs and Alex probably wasn't raping me or whatever he'd initially suspected. He told us it sounded like a story for our parents, we'd both better see the counselor about whatever the family stuff was first thing tomorrow morning, and right now to get upstairs, pronto. Alex didn't say a word. He seemed to stare at the tongues of his Converse even while trudging through the adjoining room and up the stairs. I reached back behind me and held his hand.

At the top of the creepy staircase Mr. A. checked to make sure the hallway was clear so we could cross without anyone seeing what a mess we'd made of ourselves and told us to go into his office. "Call your parents, Christine," he told me. "_Both_ your parents." Alex took a pen from Mr. A's desk and numbly scratched his mother's number onto his palm for me to read. I made first the call to Dad, who was already in the parking lot anyway, then the awkward call that began with "Hi, um, it's Alex's friend Christine…"

* * *

Things were never the same at Harrison again after that.

Even so, the production of _The Phantom of the Opera_ still happened just like it was supposed to. The next evening I was the mirror bride. The following weekend I somehow played Christine on autopilot. I don't even remember my curtain calls. Dad bought the video. Alex insisted we watch it once since he didn't get to see it live.

Once word got out—in that mixed up twisted way that things get around with the details all messed up—people acted a little weird around me for a while.

In the end, I did not go to prom with Alex.

No, I didn't go with Ryan, either. Ryan went with Kristi.

And of course, I didn't go with Raul. Raul took Savannah.

Alex and I did not go at all.

This is not a late 19th century Gothic romance, and consequences are real in the 21st century. Since Alex hadn't actually planted a bomb in the school or captured me, he couldn't be prosecuted for thinking it up, but there was really no denying that he had planned to kill himself after I said no. Alex has been through a lot of crap at that school; I can't believe I'd never noticed it (or him) all the years we'd been enrolled together. What happened this year was minor compared with last year and the year before, and all of that is _nothing_ when placed beside his experiences in middle school. I learned later that he'd told me only a very, very small amount. When I think about it, I'm sort of amazed that he survived until now. I'm even more amazed that he ever worked up the nerve to tap me with that pencil in Civics. He still hasn't told me everything because he says he doesnt want me to feel bad or. I wish he'd tell me, and I wish he'd told me sooner. There was talk about the school suspending him for the rest of the school year, which Mr. Smith attempted to explain as "more for your own good than as a punishment" but the point became moot when the psychiatric facility that did the evaluation that was required by the school before he could return decided he needed an in-patient program. The fact that I had loved him since Mardi Gras could not change that. The first week I couldn't even see him, and I worried myself sick. By the second week, though, the doctors knew the story and wanted to meet me, maybe to see if I'd been the cause of the whole mess, or, as they managed to convince my parents, to make sure that I wasn't completely traumatized by it.

Alex was still on the ward at the in-patient program the night of prom, and I spent the evening there. I bought and wore the purple gown I'd planned to. It turns out purple is Alex's favorite color.

Alex finished junior year at the hospital and was released shortly before the end of summer. He's officially enrolled back at school but is studying at home through some agreement between the school and the psychiatrist. He still has the Beast and he meets me every day after school, except on Thursdays, when he has to go to therapy. We do all the normal teenager stuff like walk around the mall, get ice cream at the Dairy Queen, hang around at the corner store, and play video games that annoy our parents. Alex still listens to opera, and sometimes we sing along while blasting it in the Beast, who's still running, of course. There's nothing wrong with her.

On campus, Mr. Smith brought in some special task force, some anti-bullying campaign called Bully Busters, and the people from Rachel's Challenge. I told Alex's story to Rachel's dad personaly and joined the Student Ambassador group for a bully-free school. We got special training from Mr. Scott's program as well as from the Safe Schools Ambassadors program. Mom and Dad acted really positive about the whole thing in my presence, but once Dad knew the details about what really happened between me and Alex, I heard him tell Mom when he thought I wasn't listening that Mr. Smith was doing "too little, too late." I don't agree with too little, because things really are changing, but it came awfully close to being too late for Alex. I think about all the warning they had. When you consider the number of people skipping class, the fact that Alex didn't come to the cafeteria for a whole year, the stuff that happened in the cafeteria with Ben, the situation with Bill and Alex's jacket in the upstairs hallway... How many times was Alex in Mr. Miller's office about this stuff? How many times was _I_? And even though I didn't like how she said it, Ms. Trudell was issuing a warning in her own insensitive way. Seriously, someone should have realized what was going on and stopped it sooner. Why does someone almost always have to die before anything changes? You'd think we could learn from the ones we hear about on the news instead of having to each have our own tragedy first before we realize we have a problem.

Martha, the dark-haired office aide from French Club joined the Ambassadors group too, and she brought Leanne, the one I introduced to you previously as the gray-haired girl. Savannah and I are still friends. We don't see each other as much as we used to because we're involved in different things, but she's better about the whole Alex thing than I expected. I mean, she's not his friend or anything, but if we run into each other at the mall, she says hello and treats him like a regular person. I think the way I had to tell her accounts in part for her inability to react. I think everyone was pretty stunned when the Phantomy details leaked, and everyone was afraid to say anything to anyone for at least a few days.

Ryan still talks to me; he's been accepted to the Naval Academy. I'm so proud of him. He took the Alex news pretty well when I told him. I guess he helped that he already knew because word had gotten around. The speed of rumors never ceases to amaze me. Anyway, he said the standard stuff like "Don't worry about it" and "I'm happy for you." He added an "I should have known after Mardi Gras" and "I can't believe I didn't see that coming." He gave me a hug, said goodbye. He's not really with Kristi, but who knows what could happen.

Ben is still an ass most of the time. Some things never change. He gets a little less attention and egging on now with all the anti-bully stuff going on, and maybe someday, someone will win him over and he'll shut the hell up. In the meantime, I find myself wondering what happened to him to make him this way.

Mr. Miller retired, finally. Ms. Harmon resigned and went to work for another school district. Our new counselors are a lot younger. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm planning to get in there and teach them a thing or two next chance I get.

Senior year is supposed to be a blow off, but I took an extra social studies and an extra writing course in addition to the standard required stuff. I have plenty of time for the Bully-Busters program, though, since I dropped most of my other extracurricular crap and took only a minor role in drama.

Yes, just a minor role. No more leads for me for a while. It doesn't matter, though, since I'm no longer planning to major in musical theatre. I applied for early admission at three colleges and was accepted at all three, including Seton Hall, which offered me a scholarship, even though Ms. Harmon had been too busy to help me apply for it. I've designated psychology as my major.

And there's always senior prom. Alex is already planning it.

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Author's Note: That is the end of Chrissy's story. I know there are some holes. I may fill in those holes, just for fun, with stuff I may write in the future but pretend are "deleted scenes" or something. If there is some certain something you really specifically want to see, please let me know via review. Please ALSO check back again tomorrow for a really, REALLY important final post about Alex and some other stuff. Don't forget to review!


	42. Chapter 42

Okay, story-readers, the tale of Christine and Alex is (temporarily) over. I will be posting deleted scenes from the time during the course of this story, which will include actual stuff that got deleted and also stuff that I thought up after the fact but couldn't figure out how to put in. Later on there will be flashbacks to middle school Alex and Christine just for fun, and probably flash forwards to Alex and Chrissy in college and such-as well as any special request scenes like the two that have already been requested. But first, we have to talk about some really important stuff. I know non-fiction is a whole lot less fun than fiction a lot of the time, but please, please PLEASE read what I've posted below.

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BHC's Something like a Public Service Announcement:

**Ectodermal Dysplasia**  
For those who are wondering, Alex's condition is Ectodermal Dysplasia, a rare condition that most often affects the skin, teeth, hair follicles and sweat glands. This explains a lot of Alex's unusual behavior: he doesn't take PE with the rest of the class because his decreased ability to perspire means that exercise could result in over-heating, which could be deadly for him. He doesn't spend time outdoors-at least in the warmer months of the year-for the same reason. Of course, if he'd been incredibly interested in sports or other physical activity, he could have participated in indoor sports in an air-conditioned environment and made arrangements to have ice packs and other emergency measures available, but even under those conditions he would have to be quite careful. In Alex's case, his condition combined with his intellect and love of music resulted in simply staying indoors, which has contributed to his weight problem. His patchy hair and skin mis-matched skin pigmentation is a result of his condition as well. By the time Christine has her first remembered interaction with Alex, his mother has already had his teeth capped, but people with Alex's condition may be missing teeth or have deformed teeth. Often they're pointed. Poor Alex. This was the case with him. Fortunately for him, his family has enough money that his mother was able to have all his teeth capped. Unfortunately, he had to wait until he had all of his adult teeth and was pretty close to finished growing, though, and that resulted in everyone seeing his pointed teeth during late elementary and early middle school, and it was the subject of quite a bit of teasing as well. You have probably already put this all together by now, but this explains Alex's unusual behavior the night of the Mardi Gras dance. With Christine in the car, he's driving with the windows up and the heater on, and he's in Erik's Red Death coat. He easily became overheated. Best remedy would have been to go home for a cold bath or shower and drink lots of cold water, but coming home in that condition would have scared mom half to death and probably resulted in an ambulance being called. On top of that, Alex was so pleased to be out with Christine that he didn't dare cut it short. Besides, he house was not on the way to his house, and where was he going to leave her? He certainly couldn't take her home with him and risk her being exposed to Mom's freaking out and all that, so he opted to just take his chances and hang around outside. Not a very good choice, but not uncommon in a young person with a medical condition that makes life difficult. Alex was lucky that time. He totally could have died. Please consider reading more about Ectodermal dysplasia on the Internet. FanFiction DOT NET does not allow the typing of web addresses in stories, so please just type the name into your search engine line.

**Bullying can cause PTSD and other emotional disorders**  
A study found that PET scans of the brains of bullied kids showed the same type of trauma that we see in SOLDIERS COMING BACK FROM WAR. The brain cannot discern the difference between physical danger and emotional danger, so the brain reacts in exactly the same way. This means that many of our bullied kids experience PTSD symptoms every time they walk into a school building. Our soldiers come home and get help. Even if they do not get as much help as they need, our soldiers get to come home. We send our kids back into the war zone every day, and the vast majority of the time, teachers and administrators are not even aware of the suffering. Studies indicate that teachers see approximately 15% of the bullying that goes on. They are more likely to notice the second event—that is, not the bullying itself, but the victims' reaction to the bullying (Alex's outburst in the social studies hall, for example). As a result, bully victims are often labeled as the aggressors; other times, it's considered to be a 50/50 thing. Victims are sometimes made to apologize. While this is cause for outrage, I can tell you from experience working in a school that it's really hard to figure out who the real bully is until you've had a couple dozen interactions with both kids. Do you seriously think most bully victims come tell again after not getting the right reaction the first three times? Answer's no. Not our fault, but we're making it worse accidentally. It's tragic.

If you have been a bully victim and think you might suffer from PTSD, you do not have to live with symptoms of PTSD forever. If you are still under 18, ask your parents to get you help. If you are over the age of 18, you can find help for yourself. Two treatments are known to decrease or eliminate PTSD. They are "prolonged exposure therapy" and "EMDR." Prolonged exposure is generally offered only to those who have been involved in war or large-scale trauma, but any clinician trained in EMDR will understand the nature of the trauma of bullying. The good news is treatment doesn't take that long and works pretty quickly.

**Suicide Intervention**  
If you suspect someone may be thinking of hurting him or herself, you need to ask them, directly, point blank "Are you thinking of hurting yourself?" Asking the question WILL NOT put the thought in their head if they have not though of it already. If they are already thinking of it, it will not make them any more likely to do it. People experiencing suicidal thoughts tend to be relieved once someone asks them—they don't have to keep it a secret anymore. No matter who you are, how old you are, or how well you know the person, you cannot stop there. Once someone admits to you that they have considered suicide, convince them to get help. Do not leave them alone until help is available. A mental health professional may wish to have them promise, in writing, that they will not commit suicide, and though such a contract is obviously not enforceable, there is some evidence that a person is less likely to act after having signed such a document. That said, professional help is still necessary. Suicidal ideation is a symptom of depression, and untreated can result in death. Your friend experiencing thoughts of suicide may not want you to tell. But would you rather your friend be upset with you, or dead?

**Literature, movies, video games**  
Books are forever getting blamed for things that people do, suicide and violence in particular. So are musical groups, video games, movies, tv shows, etc. Yes, video games are violent. Yes, they are far more realistic today than they were when I was in high school. But games do not cause kids to hurt other kids. Neither does Marilyn Manson or Jackass or reading some book. Columbine did not happen because the boys liked Hitler or Manson, and despite Marilyn Manson's attempt to blame George W. Bush, it didn't happen because this nation is at war. It happened because kids are cruel to other kids, it hurts to be the one who can never fit in, and without a support system, people can eventually crack. You can say "Well, I was bullied and I never shot anyone." Thankfully, I, too, can say exactly that. You and I had a different support system that allowed us to become emotionally stronger than Eric and Dylan did. Be thankful for that. How glad I am that I did not have to play their role on this earth. Mr. Smith in my story tends to blame Alex, and I assure you there's going to be a point where he asks Madame Welch to stop having the kids read Phantom. That will not solve anything. Mr. Smith is looking at symptoms, not the actual problem. The problem is that while the world may have come a long way since Leroux's time, it has not come nearly far enough. We still ostracize those who are different, and they carry those emotional scars with them throughout life, often making them into angry, abusive, or inept adults. Bullying is a problem of epic proportions and must be stopped. But my generation isn't going to do it. Obviously. As I learned from my former boss. I am doing what I can, but those of you between the ages of 12 and 21, I believe it is YOUR job. No everyone will listen. But some will listen. Those who listen will spread the word and maybe do something good. One of them may become a Rachel, or a Christine.

**Stopping Bullying**  
Parents generally encourage their children to either "not react" (so the bully dopesn't know the abuse is getting to you) or to fight back (stand up for yourself and they'll stop). In reality, the victim's response is unlikely to make a difference to the bully. If the victim fights harder, the bully is likely to be irritated and get worse. If the victim does not respond, the bully is likely to try harder. Studies show that the single most effective way for bullying to decrease is for OTHER STUDENTS—the bystanders—to condemn the bullying and stand up for the victim. Thus, if Christine had gotten up and defended Alex in the cafeteria, it might have helped. It would have been far more likely to work, though, if she could have convinced Savannah and Ryan to stand up and defend Alex, too. People like Ben feed off the defenselessness of a loner-it MAY even be evolutionary. The strongest animals tend to eventually ostracize or kill the weaker animals for species survival. Problem is, we've evolved, but not all our tendencies have. There's no need to kill off Alex, but Ben doesn't think it through, he just reacts to his instincts. And the others react to theirs, too and stay out of it to avoid conflict. As you probably already know, stopping bullying is a complex problem that is not nearly as simple as we all wish it would be. Pulling a child out of school to home school, private school, or even just move is always an option. There's a view that you don't teach them how to stand up for themselves by "rescuing" them, but on the other hand, you don't teach them anything by causing them trauma either. Think of it like telling a soldier "Just stop letting it bother you that things are blowing up all around you and you're concerned you might die any second. Just stand up and tell them you think they should stop!" Um... no. The idea is the get them back OUT of the dangerous environment as fast as possible!

**Rachel's Challenge**  
Rachel's Challenge is a program started by Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, the first student to die at Columbine High School. Following the tragedy, Mr. Scott was approached by several groups, including some anti-gun people, to get him as a spokesperson. He refused. He said "This wasn't about that." Mr. Scott believes that the Columbine tragedy was actually about what happens when students' bullying goes unchecked. Rachel, too, was aware of this. She sought out those who did not fit in at her school and made friends with them while she was living. Mr. Scott tells stories of all the people who came up to him after Rachel's death saying that she was their only friend, their best friend, etc., and at least one guy who happened to meet Rachel on the day he was planning to kill himself—and didn't because of her. In my four years as a school counselor, I begged my principal every year to bring Rachel's Challenge to our school, and every year I was told no because it cost too much money. I offered to raise the money. I even once offered to donate the money. My principal, unfortunately, was absolutely convinced that we did not have a bullying problem. He feels this is something that happens other places, not where we are. If you ever have the chance to attend a Rachel's Challenge event, no matter who you are, how old you are or how stupid you might think you'll find it, you need to go. It is by far the single most important thing you will ever experience in your entire life. I promise you that.

**Bully Busters**  
The Bully Busters program provides curriculum to school counselors and other school staff to intervene more effectively in bullying situations. The curriculum encourages bully victims to tell adults in order to put a stop to bullying and to keep telling adults until the victim finds one who is able to put a stop to the bullying. The Bully Busters program starts with elementary school kids. It seems to be pretty effective at the elementary school level. I haven't used it with middle schoolers, although my prior middle school DID get copies of the curriculum my last year there.**  
**

**Safe School Ambassadors**  
The Safe School Ambassador program is a student-based program in which specific students, student ambassadors, are trained in how to handle bullying among their peers. Select members of school faculty and staff are also trained to interact with SSAs, bullies and victims in order to intervene more effectively in bullying situations. In my opinion this program is probaby very effective because it capitalizes on the idea that student bystanders are the ones who have the power to make a difference. We can teach the victims, and we can attempt to teach the bullies, but until the bystanders stand up and take action, there will always be those who get away with it and those who are affected by it.

**Principal & Teacher Bullies**  
At a bullying conference two years ago, I was given some statistics on the percentage of school teachers and school administrators who are/were bulliles themselves. I can't find those statistics at the moment, which means I can't post them here, but the percentage was great enough that I felt cause for serious concern. Principals and teachers who were bullies as children may not have ever learned why those things are wrong. Some of them remain bullies to this day. I have personally witnessed situations where teachers or principals put down students, even in front of other students. This is absolutely deplorable, regardless of what the student has done or what the perceived "reason" is. Another cause for concern is that those teachers and principals (even those counselors!) who were not bullies may still not realize the seriousness of bullying if they have never been a victim. When I made an issue of bullying at the school where I worked, my principal reminded me that my primary goal as school counselor was to encourage the children to go to college. He felt I was spending too much time focusing on "negative" things rather than on the positive. I told him that in order to go to college, they first have to survive, and that in order to survive, they need not to end up like Phoebe Prince. Phoebe is a name that everyone seems to know after the media coverage of her story, but on my wall I had pictures of oer 20 young people who died by suicide with bullying as a major factor in the cause of their depression. For four years I worked there feeling that I was going to be the one to make a difference, but after I was required to take the pictures of the victims down and told to stop focusing on this, I left my job. I sincerely hope that someone eventually realizes the problem is that principal and replaces him, because the bullying can never stop under his leadership. His "talks" to the victims included not only reminding them that other people are probably "just jealous" so they should "ignore it" but also encouraging them to join sports and act like everyone else. Seriously? Just act like everyone else? Well, goodness, if only I'd known, I could have had a much easier life, too! Hello! Here's a clue. If we knew how to act like everyone else, we probably would. We need to be ourselves, and we need to be accepted for being ourselves. Anything else will contribute to our depression, not alleviate it. Anyway, he wanted to know "my story" as in "why this means so much to you." I gave him a list of student names. He wanted more. He gave an example of why he became a principal. Sorry, sir, I'm just not going to tell you some overly dramatic story about how I became a counselor to protect kids like myself. I became a counselor to attempt to protect the ones I was actually working with. That's reality. My own past trauma is my own past trauma and has already been resolved. Does that mean everyone else should have to suffer through it? Because, seriously, the bullying gets worse, and the victims today seem to have fewer resources than we did when I was growing up.

**The Alternate Ending to the story**  
For those who requested I post "both endings" I do not have a cohesive version of the alternate ending, but I will tell you here how the other ending would have gone. The ending you have published here is the softer, easier version of the ending. The original ending was a little less happy, even though Alex did not commit suicide or blow anyone up in either ending. In the other version when Mr. Akers appears at the end of the story Christine warns everyone to stay back, and they do, based on the urgency of her tone. Akers sends Mark back above and suggests that Christine and Alex come up, just like he did here. Alex pulls himself together, gets to his feet, approaches Mr. Akers and asks Mr. Akers to call the police. He's very subdued and quiet and he just says "Call the police, sir. There's a bomb." That's a chapter break, and then next chapter is Christine's final wrap up as you have it here, except it's got some additional stuff I ended up cutting out:

_You cannot even begin to imagine the chaos that was unleashed an instant after he said that word. Yes, the police were called. A bomb squad arrived and EMS and the fire department and a bunch of other emergency people. And the news arrived. And the people from the school district. And the school board. And some city council people. And everyone's parents. Alex went in handcuffs to police car; I was led to my father, who, of course, was present already anyway to pick me up after dress rehearsal. I stood and stared at the mess of people running back and forth, and tried to figure out why there was a blanket around my shoulders. _

_People shouted after the police car that took Alex away. Some news lady came up and tried to ask me something, but Dad stepped between her and me and escorted me away._

_The house phone rang as my Dad opened the front door. Dad ordered Trent not to answer it and unplugged it from the wall. Mom came home early and stayed home a couple of days. For the first time in as long as I could remember, Trent did not play Call of Duty. I didn't miss it a bit. _

_The book was still in my backpack. I took it out and put it under my pillow, where I would leave it until Alex was released._

**Explanation**  
The reason for the change is not merely to make it happier, although that was a pleasant side effect (this is only the SECOND thing I have written with a happy ending!). The real reason for the change is as I was reading over the draft I had written it occurred to me that if Alex had planted the bomb, Alex would know how to defuse it, so he wouldn't need to turn himself in and have the bomb squad come out to take it apart. And if he didn't plan for anything to explode until the following night, he probably wouldn't have set it up yet. And if he hadn't set it up yet, he probably couldn't be arrested for it. Unless he just turned himself in because he felt guilty, which would still be less exciting than what I originally had. In Christine's final wrap up in the original, Alex went first to some juvenile detention facility, then to the psychiatric hospital. He was still incarcerated at the time of junior prom, and Christine couldn't visit there, so she went to prom alone. She didn't feel right going with Ryan because of how she felt about Alex. In that version, Alex didn't get to go to senior prom either because he was still in treatment and had been permanently expelled from Harrison. I think everything else was about the same.

**Other details**  
I am sad that I didn't get to put the hollow pillars in the cafeteria into this story. I just couldn't figure out a way to make them work the way Erik's column in box five worked. I also didn't get to work Raul, the guy whose name sounds like Raoul, into the story more than I did. Orignally, Chris was going to end up briefly flirting with him and perhaps necking in the audion with him, which would have substituted for one of the Ryan rooftop scenes or something. I also deleted a prior hurt/comfort scene between Chris and Alex in the counseling office because I decided it was more effective if they didn't touch until the end, just like Erik and Christine in the original. That scene led eventually to an opportunity for Alex to explain his skin condition to Christine, but I decided it felt too "medical" and deleted it in favor of simply asking readers to please read about this condition on their own. I also deleted a scene of Alex and Christine in the boiler room having lunch and talking about their parents and summertime activities and camping and so forth. It painted a picture of Alex as a kid with not much of a fun childhood, but it also ruined the mystery that makes Alex seem Erik-y. I replaced that whole deleted scene with a one-line reference to it after Christine visits Alex's house: she says she learned why he didn't take PE with everyone else and how he got so good at music and art.

Originally, it was Alex who took Christine up into the ceiling, not Ryan. I deleted that after a while because it seemed wildly improbable.

There was also originally more detail when Alex got out of the car that night on the way home from the Halloween dance because Christine got out of the car and went looking for him. It was akward, though, so I ultimately had to delete it.

**Real References**  
The layout of Harrison High School is actually the layout of Penn-Trafford High School in Harrison City, Pennsylvania, which is a school I went to a long, long, long time ago in another lifetime. The names of the teachers are names of teachers who worked there long ago as well as names of teachers I worked with throughout the 15 years I worked in public education. If you drive east from Penn-Trafford High School, you'll eventually go through the nearby town that has the small university and the art museum. The art museum doesn't actually have a little domed ceiling where you can sing and it echos. The domed ceiling is on the Rhapsody of the Seas cruise ship, but the constellations and the echo really do happen there. It's awesome. The hollow pillars in the cafeteria come from the fact that there really were hollow pillars at a school where I worked in Texas. Mr. Miller and Ms. Harmon are compilations of some school counselors I've known over the years who meant well but ultimately screwed up. I'm not bashing school counselors—I worked as one for four years, and my partner and I helped a lot of kids, I'd like to think. Oh yeah. That's another thing. I meant to have Ms. Harmon go on maternity leave so I could give myself a cameo in the story but something happened and it got left out. I wouldn't even know where to put it now. Alex and Christine are completely made up, except to the extent that Christine is based on Leroux's Christine and Alex is a combination of Leroux's Erik and a bunch of stuff I thought would make life really difficult for a modern teenager. Ryan is based on Leroux's Raoul with a heavy influence of all the popular folks at the high school I attended, as are the guys on the track team and Chrissy's friends.

**More information?**  
Any questions? Put them in a review and I'll respond, I promise.

**Hands**  
After Rachel Scott's death, her father rearranged the furniture in her room at some point. When he moved her dresser, he found that she had traced her hands when she was very young. And she had written, "These are the hands of Rachel Joy Scott. Someday, they will touch the world." Singer/song writer Jewel wrote lyrics, "These hands are small I know, but they're not yours, they are my own… and we are never broken… in the end… only kindness matters."

Look at your hands. Now get off FFN and GO CHANGE THE WORLD! (Then come back and "review" about what amazing stuff you did. Cause you're awesome. You do know that, right? You are totally, completely and irrevocably AWESOME. Every last one of you!)


	43. Chapter 43

Hello, hello! Well, here's a brief why you don't hear from me much update: I think I already announced that I quit my job in July. It was very likely the best decision I have ever made. But while I was working for myself and working for the school, I got very behind on working for myself. When I quit, I had to work very hard on certain projects in order to earn enough money to survive, so it was very difficult to get caught up on other things. As a result, I am still behind in some parts of my work, so all my free time goes to that. Why are you getting a post now then? My parents were visiting this week, so I haven't worked since last Tuesday, and I don't go back to work until Sunday at 6 p.m. But there were some breaks in the visits where my parents were at their hotel and my husband was at work so I took a few minutes to write. The result is I have about 6000 words of Alex and Christine fluff that provide a little bit of "what happened after Phantom ended at Harrison High School. I really should have taken the opportunity to write and written on my original work that I intend to publish, but my original work is a much more serious content, and requires a different level of concentration. I take that back. What could be more serious than Alex being bullied almost to suicide? But the seriousness involving Alex is over now; fluff does not require the same type of focus. So, without further ado: here's some overly cheesy Alex and Christine fluff. Enjoy!

Actually, I do own these two characters. Take that, ALW and Leroux!

* * *

Even though Dad was already in the parking lot and Alex's mom couldn't have known what was going on, they arrived at about the same time. Dad announced he'd been stuck in a line of parents waiting to pick up students. Alex's mom said nothing, just slid into a chair quietly with her hand over her mouth and her eyes intent on Alex.

Dad finally asked the dreaded question, and since it was my parent who asked, I figured it was my obligation to answer. I gave him the official version, what I thought would keep Alex safest. I'd tell him more of the whole truth later, of course. This was _Dad_, after all. But I don't know Alex's mom. She was in purple this time and as perfect as the last time, except for the disturbed expression about the mouth and eyes. Although I'd adjusted my opinion of her slightly based on what Alex said below, I couldn't be sure how much of the truth she would accept without freaking out.

"We started talking during intermission and forgot to go back up for the rest of the show," I said. It was stupid, Alex probably would have said. But it _wasn't_ stupid. It might all feel different in the morning, but at the moment, it was feeling like the most important thing that had happened in my entire life. Sorry, Alex would probably have said. I wasn't sorry at all, but we were probably expected to say that. "I apologize." We shouldn't have done it, Alex was probably thinking. But he was wrong. I had absolutely no regrets about following him down there and confronting him—except maybe that if I'd talked with him more seriously sooner, the whole situation could have been avoided. Even Ms. Harmon would say I did the right thing, if she weren't too busy to let me tell her what Alex had been thinking of and what I did to stop him. "We weren't doing anything bad," I said. There. That conveyed it. Let them think sex or let them think drugs, we weren't doing any of that. And Alex wasn't doing anything like suicide or terrorism either, because I convinced him not to. "I promise. We were just talking."

I glanced at Alex again. He'd retracted his hand inside one of his sleeves and pressed the sleeve end over his face. He shook slightly and seemed to be sobbing silently.

His mother spoke his name but he didn't react. The flush of her face was clashing with her perfect purple. _She doesn't know what to do with him_, I thought. I wrapped my arm around him, with my face near his. "Hey, it's okay. Christine's here," I whispered. He nodded at me and wiped his face with his sleeves.

"Look. There are some mean people. They got out of hand," I said. "We didn't do anything wrong. We were literally just talking. Like, about some people who bother Alex and some other crap. Er, stuff." Dad wouldn't mind the word crap, but I don't know Alex's mom. She looked absolutely horrified, but it could be that she'd been called into the office at all, or it could be she'd put two and two together and finally realized what sort of mess she'd managed not to notice until now.

She crossed the room and slid into the chair on the other side of Alex. It took like, standing up and turning around. Mr. A's office isn't big. She leaned around to try to see his face and said "I thought that was over with!" Alex didn't answer.

"He doesn't do anything," I defended him. "It's the other people. Some people are really mean. Like this guy B—" I stopped because Alex sort of groaned like I shouldn't have been saying anything. "Nevermind. Some people are mean."

Alex's mother gave up trying to get Alex to look at her and told me, "That stopped back in middle school." She said it with no conviction at all, though. She glanced at my father, at Alex, then at me again. "Didn't it?"

Alex shot daggers at me through his hair.

I shook my head.

Her expression changed again with a look of dread recognition. She looked at Alex. "I thought we were… you said…." She looked helplessly back at me. "Things are better here, aren't they?"

I shrugged. "A little." She looked at my dad. Dad looked at me. "Stuff's bad. Probably not as bad. But pretty bad. I don't really know. I only saw some stuff. Alex doesn't tell me everything." He looked at me. "We talk about other stuff." I waved my hand. When I set it down again, it landed on his leg.

Alex's eyes were still leaking, but the rest of him was like stone. His face didn't even twitch. His mother put her knuckles under his chin and wiped at one cheek with a thumb. He didn't move. She rooted in her purse for a tissue packet and offered him one, which he refused to take. She withdrew one from the packet and tucked it into his hand. I watched it disappear into his fist unused.

Mr. Akers opened the door and slipped in. "Have we got everything taken care of in here?" His hands came together and clapped once as he said it. We all looked at him.

He massaged his hands around each other and dropped his voice a little lower. "I don't want to lose either of the kids from the production. We… They shouldn't have… Things like this need to be handled outside school, outside rehearsal. Can't have kids just running off in the middle of things like this. Whatever this is about, take them home, get it handled. As far as I'm concerned, I need Christine next week as Christine." He seemed to notice the oddity as he said it. And we don't have another violinist of Alex's caliber enrolled here."

Dad nodded his agreement. Alex's mother gave Mr. A. a tight-lipped smile.

"Come on Chrissy. Let's give your friend and his mom a moment."

Alex and I looked at one another. His eyes clearely said no. "Come on Chrissy." Dad had his arm around my shoulders. I hesitated. Wait, Dad, wait! But I couldn't say it. Alex's eyes burned into mine. Dad directed me out the door. I tried to stay, Alex. _I tried_.

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Please drop a review or other comment. I have missed corresponding with all of you. Also, sorry this one was short. The next two are longer, I believe.


	44. Chapter 44

Hello again. Here's a post for you. This one is leading up to something that some folks have been waiting a long time. Bear with me, please, we're almost there!

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The next time I saw Alex was at the hospital. I admit I had some really negative ideas about what was going to happen when I got there. I mean, what do I know about psych wards of hospitals, right? I've certainly never been to one until now and psychology is a seniors-only class. How would I know what to expect? And of course, I guess it should be reasonably obvious that it's nothing like the movies and all that, but that doesn't tell you what it should be like. I was pretty sure I wouldn't find Alex tied up or drugged up, but then, I didn't want to get my hopes up that it would be some normal place like a school and find out I was wrong. To be perfectly honest, I didn't even want to go. I just couldn't imagine seeing Alex if I was wrong about the tied up or drugged up part. In fact, I had these dreadful imaginations that looked a lot like the scene in the hallway where that teacher and the principal dragged Alex off that kid, except two doctors were in their place and one of them stuck in a needle in him and he went completely limp.

I know. That's movie stuff. That stuff probably doesn't actually happen. After all, Mr. Mason calmed Alex down just by telling him it was over and getting him away from the other kid. That's all it takes, really. As a matter of fact, Alex doesn't act crazy at all away from the other kids. He's normal when it's just him and me, so how come the solution has to be locking him up in that place? Why not suspend Ben and a couple of other jerks and give him a chance? But no one ever listens to me, so why bother thinking up alternative solutions?

So there I was with Dad and Mom at this hospital place. First of all, it's not a regular hospital with other types of stuff going on. It's only for, I guess, people like Alex. I mean, not all exactly like Alex. I don't know what the hell you call it. Psychological issues only, though. There were a bunch of buildings clustered together and they all looked pretty normal—pretty much like the school, sort of. So, we went in the main door and it was a lot like a doctor's office waiting room. I sat down on a couch and pretended like I was watching whatever television show was on and waited. Dad talked to the lady at the desk. Mom hovered behind me and stroked my hair. She's been a little weird since the thing with Alex. Like she thinks it's her fault for not being around much or something. I think she's being silly. First of all, I'm not the one who did anything that got me put in here. Second, I think I did a pretty good job at being a decent kid and a good friend and all that. Didn't she realize that? I mean, does she feel guilty that I was hanging around with Alex in the first place? If so, what was that supposed to make me think? Whatever.

We sat there for what felt like EVER and then they told us we could walk to this other building. The lady at the desk had to push a button to make the door unlock so we could go through it to go over there and that's when it started to feel more like a jail than a hospital. Not that I've ever been in a jail, either, but I didn't like that button. It's not like Alex would try to escape or anything. I mean, he obviously let himself be brought here.

I hoped. I mean, how do I know they didn't trick him or something? It's not like we'd been able to talk and text daily or anything. A girl about my age passed us going in the opposite direction and waved at me. I wondered if she was visiting or if she was a patient. I decided I didn't like the idea of Alex wearing that label. It's not quite the same as being a patient in some other kind of hospital, I decided. People don't general tease people about having to get an x-ray or something. I decided it was pretty awful here, even if there was green grass and basketball courts. I figured Alex probably wasn't getting any use out of either of those anyway.

Good thing Dad paid attention back at the little desk in the waiting room. The place was like a maze. So, somehow we got the right ward—hate that word—and stood around at a another little desk place until some lady came and took us to some little office with some other lady in it, and that turned out to be the therapist who wanted me to meet me. Of course, she had to talk to my parents _alone_ first so I got to stand in the hallway. The thought "out here with all the crazies" entered my head, and then I hated myself for it, because this is where Alex was, and I wouldn't stand for anyone call _him_ that. A moment later I realized that if I was out here with "them" and Alex was one of them, then he could walk by and I might see him. I stood up on my toes and started looking down the hall with actual intent rather than just staring into space. But Alex was nowhere to be seen, which made me worry all over again. I pictured him tied to his bed, drugged and drooling. Maybe all the other patients were mean to him so he flipped out like he had at school and the doctors decided for good that he was the problem. Or worse. Maybe in a minute they were going to open the door and tell me we're sorry, your friend is dead.

I was just starting to panic when the door opened. I didn't want to hear what they had to say if it was going to be bad, but Dad gave me a smile like it wasn't that bad, so I forced my feet to walk me in.

Dad stood so I could have his chair because there were only three total, and the therapist and mom were in the other two. We were like that for a few minutes while she bought me up to speed on what she'd supposedly already told Mom and Dad, but I know she didn't really tell me everything, because what took them maybe 10 minutes took her about two to repeat to me. Adults. Seems they all lie. Then she let my parents out but kept me there.

What the hell? Now I'm crazy, too? Jesus, I swear, we didn't do anything. We're just two relatively normal kids in a high school with a bunch of jerks who are mean. And we read a book. A book for crying out loud. One that was going to be assigned next year anyway, so what's the big deal that we read it early? We should get extra credit or something. WTF?

"So, Christine. I've heard a lot about you."

I guess I looked surprised.

"From your friend."

"_Alex_?"

"Is he your friend?"

What the hell was that supposed to me. "Yes. Why? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing. I was just asking."

I glared at her. Then I became dimly aware that I was probably making myself look crazier. I tried to act normal. I wonder if everyone who comes in here does this.

"How long have you known Alex?"

I shrugged. "Since right around the time I auditioned for the musical. Or something. Like, a few months ago. But I mean, he's been around at school for like, ever." It was true. I went back through my old yearbooks. He was in middle school with me, but he wasn't in any of my classes that I remember. He was in the elementary school, too, but we always had different teachers. I struggled to remember if I'd seen him around on the playground back then. "But we weren't friends back then."

"But you're friends now."

"Yes." WTF, lady? "Yeah, why is that weird or something? Because, you know, I have a lot of friends, so that's not that weird, I don't think."

She nodded. "Does he have a lot of friends?"

"Oh, come on, seriously? Yeah, look, people are shitty to him, okay? Sorry. I didn't meant to say shitty. Shit. Um… Okay." Laugh. Because I'm nervous again. I hate my laugh. "I just—this is weird, okay?"

"I understand, Christine. I'm just trying to get a feel for how close the two of you are. Generally, visits are for immediate family only. But…" she sort of waggled her head around like she was maneuvering through a maze.

"But what? You'll let me see him if I answer all the questions right?"

"Something like that."

"He's not crazy." It just popped out. "I mean—"

"I don't think so either."

Eye roll. "That's… not what I mean."

"Me either." Okay, now she was just messing with me.

"No, not like that! I know you're not supposed to think that about any of them! But Alex, he's different. It's not like there's anything wrong with him. He'd be perfectly normal if everyone would just leave him the hell alone."

"Mm."

"Seriously. Those are the people who need to be in here. Ben. And that guy from the upstairs hallway who took his jacket. You should do therapy on them. Figure out why they're so mean."

"We do that, too, sometimes."

"Yeah, well, not often enough."

"Treatment's generally voluntary."

Sigh. "Good point. So yeah. What else?"

"Do you think Alex wants you to leave him alone?"

"Me? Why would he want me to leave him alone?"

"You said he'd be normal if everyone would leave him alone."

"You keep tricking me. You know I don't mean that. The people who bother him should leave him alone. I don't bother him. I mean, at least, I don't think I do. We're friends. We… go out driving around places… listening to music. Or, we did. Why? Did someone say he wants me to leave him alone? I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't even _seen_ him since—" What the fuck? Why was I crying now? "Last time I saw him he kept telling me I was beautiful. He said he wanted me to go to Prom with him. He—" She pushed a box of tissue across the desk. It occurred to me that I hadn't cried since that night either. "—promised he would never send me away." I sobbed into a handful of Kleenex. "Just like that. He said 'never.' Like he meant it." I pulled myself together. "I don't believe you. I don't believe he wants me to go away. Alex would never say that." _Alex loves me._ Those were the next words that would have come out of my mouth, but I made myself shut up. Adults don't ever want to hear teenagers _love_ each other. You're too young to know what that is, they always say. I call BS. I'm pretty sure _I_ know now.

"No. Alex wouldn't say that. I didn't meant to make you think I was saying he had. I think Alex would like to see you."

"Yeah, I'd like to see him, too." I had to sort of laugh a little. It was all so flipping weird.

"Do you want to see him today?"

"Oh my god, am I allowed to?"

She nodded, just a little bit. I decided I sort of liked her, even if she did play head games a little bit.

She took me to another room, a visiting room, and left me standing there for a few minutes while she went to go get him, I guess.

While I waited I thought over and over again _please, please, please don't be all messed up, Alex…_. Those movie-type images of him shuffling in came up again. Not wearing orange, stupid, that's for jail, I told myself. And they don't use straightjackets anymore, do they? Still, he might be spacey and out of it. They do still use medication, that's no secret at all. I hoped they hadn't cut his hair. Do they do stuff like that? I worried about that especially, I think, because it seemed like without his hair he'd be even more obviously a target. The long parts of the top of his hair hang over the bare patches in back so no one really notices them but me. Imagine the things that the boys at school would say if Alex returned with his hair short so that they could all see the bald patches. I was just dreading Alex's entry, complete with bound arms, weird clothes, spacey, distant eyes and almost no hair when the door finally opened.

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Please leave me a review!


	45. Chapter 45

I want to apologize for whatever is going on. I keep trying to post and FFN keeps eating the story excerpts. If you can see this, please let me know so I know that this is working.

Post 43 and 44 should exist. 43 should be an epilogue chapter that occurs in Mr. Akers office after the events of 41. 44 is an epilogue chapter that takes place in the psych hospital. If they aren't there, I'm sorry!


	46. Chapter 46

Okay, people, I don't know what FFN is doing to my attempts to post... please skip this chapter and go on to the next chapter for the next post. Grrrr... Aggravating!

~BHC


	47. Chapter 47

Okay, I want to say say here that I have no idea WTF FFN is doing with my posts... but thank you for hanging in there. Because some of you have been so nice and hung around reading through all the glitches, I'm going to post everything I have left here rather than drag it out over two posts. Without further ado: here's some overly cheesy Alex and Christine fluff. Enjoy!

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Actually, I do own these two characters. Take that, ALW and Leroux!

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She'd let the door close behind me when she left me in there alone, but when she came back with Alex, she propped the door open with a doorstop and waved at me and gestured. I didn't pay any attention, though, because I was trying to react correctly to Alex's entrance. He was dressed in normal clothes, anyway, thank god for that, but it did look like someone had acted out my haircut nightmare. And when I say regular clothes, not quite Alex's normal actual regular clothes just not obvious hospital clothes. He was wearing some lightweight loose-fitting long sleeved white shirt and some shapeless pants that weren't particularly flattering. He looked sort of nervous walking in and smiled shyly at me when he saw me.

I was sort of caught off guard and didn't react at first but after a minute I managed to shuffle to him and let him hug me. He wrapped both arms around me tight and squeezed while inhaling sharply as though he could breathe me in. He just stood there for a while, holding on and holding his breath. When he finally exhaled he said, "I wasn't sure you would come."

"Of course I came, Alex. Of course I came." I couldn't even hug him back. My arms were pinned until he let me go. When he did, I grabbed both his hands.

"I don't know. I just wasn't sure."

I wanted to tell him of course I came because of those three words that I never say, but I wasn't sure I should. Hadn't they told me to keep it light, not get into anything major? And of course, I wasn't really sure how he felt, either. I'd gone over and over our conversation that night. He'd called me beautiful. He'd said he was going to ask me to prom. He said he was pleased to see me. Called me special. Said he could never hurt me. But he hadn't actually said… I could have leapt to conclusions. "We have so much to talk about, Alex," I said instead.

He drew away slowly but looked me in the eye and nodded. Sadly, I think. "I guess we do." He was breathing slowly, carefully, like he was keeping it all together and doing a pretty damn good job. "I know I probably misinterpreted a lot. I guess that's why they let you visit. _They_ figured there was no way..." His eyes strayed toward the door after the therapist who might be hovering in the doorway, might have stood against the wall to give a false impression of privacy. "But though I was wrong that night, I still think I know you. I know you're not one of them." One of who? Oh my goodness, could he have some paranoia thing going on now too? "I don't think I'm wrong. You're were actually friend for real, weren't you?"

"Of course I'm your friend for real, Alex. Jesus, what the hell? I thought we were—I mean, I thought you—you said you…" I wasn't doing too well for a moment there. I don't know what Alex's week looked like, but I'd spent the whole week reconciling the part of myself with loved Alex with the part of myself that fit in at school. I prepared all my friends for the possibility of my being with Alex and let them know, you know, if you don't like it, well, that's not an option, you're just going to have to like it for me because that's just the way it is. I'd gone back to the art museum. I'd hung out with Alex's mom. I know it sounds really stupid, but I completely surrounded myself with Alex-related stuff because I'd been so sure. I even borrowed some opera CDs Alex's mom said he really like and drove around listening to them and trying to get to know them because I didn't want to be the Abercrombie girl who didn't "get" it. "Of course I was your friend, Alex. Am your friend. Yeah. I'm your friend." I pressed my head against his chest and let him stroke my hair. He just automatically did it exactly right. I could feel moisture on my eyelashes, but I decided I wasn't going to cry, and it wasn't a huge fight not to. Alex is my friend. I spent a week getting used to thinking otherwise, and in another week, maybe, I could adjust back to that. I took a deep breath. "I guess I just thought you wanted more."

He laughed. "Of course I did. Who wouldn't? Are you kidding?"

Sigh. "Yeah, well… But I said yes, remember?"

Silence. A long silence. I was about to tell him, you know, never mind, I understand and stuff when he took another deep breath and pulled away slightly. "I don't know, Christine." He looked around to indicate the whole place. I breathed a sigh of relief that his hair was only _pinned back_, not hacked off, and then it made me sad because just when I was starting to like the way he looked, he was about to say that he didn't _really_ think of me _that_ way. Or something. "I'm not sure I remember that night exactly right. I was pretty mixed up." I didn't know what to say to that. "You really meant yes the way I might have thought you meant yes?"

"Yes." The conversation was turning weird. "Yes, I said yes. Yes means yes, Alex. What the hell else could I have meant?"

"Oh, I don't know." He laughed. "You could have said yes to save all those people, right?"

"Sure. Present of their lives. No. I really said yes."

He nodded absently. "Once I got here, I figured I'd probably imagined all that. I mean, They say… about the book, I mean..." He struggled for a moment. "It _does_ sound a little silly when you say it in broad daylight."

I nodded because I had to play along. Alex had had me almost completely convinced, but if they were trying to talk him out of it, I certainly wasn't going to talk him back into it because it would probably mean having to stay here longer.

He continued. "If it's true the whole thing was a delusion, then you could be part of that, too. I could have completely and totally misinterpreted everything you ever said. Or imagined it, even. I mean, I thought we were _them_ easily enough and that's just… well, never mind. The point is, that night I was up for thinking all kids of weird shit that couldn't be true. Including you."

I wasn't sure what exactly to say. "I don't think you misinterpreted anything I said, Alex." I put my head against his chest and leaned against him. He wrapped his arms around me once again and put his cheek against the top of my head. "I'm the true part," I told him. "I can let them know if you need me to."

He laughed again and looked toward the door where that therapist was no doubt lurking. "Somehow, I think they'll believe me about that now."

"Alex?"

"Hm?"

"Does this make me your girlfriend?"

He stopped breathing for a few seconds. Finally he said, "Is that okay with you?"

"Yeah. Um, hello? Yes." He squeezed me so hard I thought I would suffocate, then he lifted me off my feet for a second and spun around. When he let go, I panted for air. "Hey, careful. I gotta have air you know."

"Sorry." But he was smiling like I've never seen before. I felt sort of stupid that having me around could make anybody so happy, but I was grinning like an idiot, too, so I didn't really care that much.

There were some chairs against the wall and we sat in them. I asked him what the place was like and he said it wasn't bad. The food was okay, there was group therapy and individual therapy, and other than that, he had loads of free time. He'd been writing poetry since he didn't have his violin. The medication wasn't too bad—they didn't give him anything that made him feel too weird, except at night to sleep the first two nights, which he complained about. I have to admit he did seem happier than I've ever seen him before, and I don't think I can take credit for all of it. There were, apparently, some nice kids our age who were friendly enough, and they all had access to video games and air hockey and a bunch of other fun stuff. Alex said he mostly liked to watch, but he said it leaning back against the wall the plastic chair with his arms folded and his ankles crossed, and it seemed to me a sort of older person watching younger kids play type of watching than the kind of watching where you feel you can't fit in even though you want to.

"I don't know if they're going to let me visit again or not," I said. "It's supposed to be family only."

He nodded. "They wanted to see you. They _really_ didn't believe me."

I scoffed. "Whatever. But listen. If I don't come back, it's because they don't let me, not because I don't want to, okay? I don't care how long it is, if you don't see me, it's not because I didn't want to come. I'll miss you."

He stroked my hair. "I'll miss you, too, Christine. God, that sounds weird." He laughed. "They want me to forget all about the book. Or, at least, not think of it any different than any other book. But how can I do that when you're Christine and always will be?"

"You can call me Chrissy like everyone else does."

"No, that's okay. You'll always be Christine. But _this_ couldn't have happened in the book. I'll just tell them, you know, yeah, it's just a book, they just have the same name, it's no big deal, whatever, yeah, I was sick, I got confused. No big deal. They'll accept it eventually. Besides, they can't keep me here forever. I think they said thirty days."

"Thirty days!"

"Yeah. Something to do with our insurance. It's a good plan, actually. Some kids have to leave after a week, and they're still not all right."

"But thirty days, Alex!"

"I know." He reached around and hugged me again. "I'll miss you. It's going to seem long. But not as long, now that I know you're out there to look forward to." His expression fell as he looked it me. "Hey. What's the matter?"

"Nothing. It's nothing. Really. It's just… thirty days. We'll miss prom."

He shrugged, looked apathetic.

"I really did want to go with you, though. I mean, not like… I wasn't thinking about it before you said anything, but after you asked—or, after you said you were going to ask, I started thinking about it." It was true. For the past week I'd been having Prom-With-Alex fantasies. Me in the purple dress, Alex in a black tux, out in the middle of the dance floor, not having to hang around with all the various crowds I'm supposed to be a part of, just dancing to the music and actually enjoying it. When he hugged me today I flashed to dancing at prom, Alex over me and around me, almost completely enveloping me. Say what you want about his size, I felt safe. I had even played through my Prom kiss fantasy with Alex. You know the one where some sappy romantic music is playing and there's one of those breaks in the song that sort of naturally occurs or is done for effect or whatever, and in the time of that break, you look up at your date and he looks down at you and leans in a little closer and I'm on my toes with my eyes closed. And he kisses me. I can feel a change through my whole body that's probably some brain chemical or something, but it makes me tingle all over. Yeah. I've played that fantasy through with Alex as the kisser. And I don't know. Maybe I'm stupid, maybe I'm crazy, but it's the best kiss fantasy I've had. And I know I was supposed to be the upbeat one there to let help Alex get better not sit around being bummed out and depressing, but I was really just shattered that prom with Alex was not going to be happening. I thought about Alex's mom. I'd visited with her over the week that Alex was away and I couldn't see him. She didn't ask me whether I was Alex's girlfriend or how long we'd been friends or anything, thank God. Instead she told me how empty the house seemed without him in it and worried if he was okay. I told her I missed talking with him and wondered the same thing. Ultimately, it led to this visit. But I had shared with her that I wanted to go to prom with him. Her answer was sort of noncommittal. It was something like "Well, we'll see. I'm sure he'd like that, though." At the time I thought she was saying she didn't believe me I'd really go with him, but now I realized it was probably because she already knew he wouldn't be out in time. "It's okay. It's not that big a deal. I just… once you brought it up, I got really excited about it."

"You can go with someone else, you know."

"No, I won't do that."

"What's-his-name? Ryan?"

"No!" As much as I'd wanted to go with Ryan before, to go with Ryan now, even as friends, would feel very, very weird. I could go with Axl, but after missing Valentine's with Becca, Axl would probably be pulling out all the stops to make prom with Becca happen. I couldn't think of anyone else I could bear to spend prom night with. "It's okay. I just won't go."

Alex sandwiched one of my hands between his and looked concerned. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. He couldn't possibly know, I didn't think, how big a deal prom was supposed to have been for me. I mean, there's no way he could know that I'd been planning it since before I ever even got to high school the way some girls do. Savannah and I in particular had been looking at prom gowns in catalogs since first grade. But I knew for sure what a big enough deal it was to Alex. I still didn't have the details, but I knew it had more than crossed his mind to completely highjack opening night of Phantom to attempt to convince me to go, and hurting or killing himself was on the agenda if I'd said no. It was sort of hard to believe that now, by broad daylight here in the visiting room where he looked so normal and, with the exception of just now relating directly to this prom thing, he'd looked so happy. "I messed everything all up. I'm really sorry."

"Okay, Alex, seriously, you didn't mess anything up. I mean, um, it could have been really bad if you'd actually pulled an Erik that night, you know? But if you mean you messed it up for me, I don't think so. We'll go next year."

He lit up. The smile from earlier broke across his face again and he squeezed my hands so hard they hurt a little. "Okay."

"Great."

"You're really not upset about this year?"

"I will be upset if you hurt yourself. Or if you get yourself in any more trouble. That's it. Just do whatever the hell you have to do to get out of here."

"Yeah. I was afraid they would say I could never see you again."

"Me too." It had crossed my mind, actually.

There was a knock at the door and the voice of the therapist (who I'm sure had never actually left) called, "Time's almost up, kids." I couldn't see her in the doorway, but I tried to jump to my feet to go.

Alex held my arm and pulled me back. "She said almost," he said. He waved at the empty doorway and gave her a double thumbs-up sign. He let go of my right arm but reached forward and grabbed my left. I looked at him in confusion and his other arm slipped around my shoulders and pulled me closer. I was so surprised I gasped, and when I did his lips closed over mine. He wrapped himself entirely around me. While we were locked together I felt like I was soaring, leaving the hospital beneath us and flying over the city through warm beams of sunlight, and my ears were filled with music—high soprano voices, but they faded as I noticed the pounding of my heart as well as the pounding of Alex's. My hands somehow freed themselves and found the sides of his head then the back of his head. My fingers twined themselves in his hair. I was very aware of Alex's hand on the small of my back holding me tightly, and when his lips left mine, he did not move away but continued to hold me against him, our noses touching. Through the blur of being so close, I could make out he was smiling. I pressed my face against his. He stroked my hair. "You have to go home," he said. "I'll miss you. I'll miss you." He kissed me again, lightly, softly, briefly. He whispered, "Thank you for visiting."

I couldn't say a thing. I couldn't catch my breath. I stood shakily. We held hands all the way to the door where his therapist pretended she didn't notice anything amiss.

"You'll let me see her again, won't you?" Alex was asking.

Say yes, say yes, say yes, my mind screamed. Her response was something about Alex's mom. I made up my mind to visit her as soon as my parents were done whatever they wanted to do with me. Then I was drifting down the hallway towards Mom and Dad and Alex was being told that was as far as he could escort me.

"Goodbye, Christine."

"No," I said. "No, just until later." I turned to hug him again, standing up my toes to reach up to put my arms around his neck.

His lips touched mine so briefly I'm sure Mom and Dad couldn't have noticed. "Later," he whispered.

And then he was gone.

I fairly floated to the car, the dim awareness that I was sad that he was gone entirely overshadowed by excitement. In my head I began numbering the days until he would be home again.

* * *

Comments, please? (Suggestions for additional scenes would be nice, too!)


	48. Chapter 48

Hi, everyone.

I'm sorry to say this isn't a new chapter. It IS however, amazing...

You may have seen circulating an excerpt from Britain's Got Talent or this extended video including interviews with Jonathan and Charlotte. In case you haven't, I'm posting it below. Remember that FFN doesn't like us to post links, so in order to do so you have to delete every period and every slash. Therefore, I'm replacing the periods with the word DOT like that in all caps and replacing the slashes with the word SLASH. Remember that in internet addresses the slashes are forward slashes, the key that has "?" on it as well.

http:SLASHSLASHwwwDOTyoutubeDOTco mSLASHwatch?v=kt3Utn4mjeg

Anyway, when I first saw this, first heard Jonathan sing, it was like "Holy shit! That's Alex!" Mind you, Jonathan doesn't look that much like Alex. Alex's hair is straighter and darker, and Alex also has a skin condition that makes him sort of patchy and scaly, whereas Jonathan is a pretty good-looking kid. But in terms of personality, size, and singing voice, this is Alex all-the-way.

I meant to post this right away after I saw it the first time, but I never did. I don't remember why. I guess I was just busy and stuff. I've MEANT to post it a couple of times, and I never seem to manage to do it.

Well, today I happened to look at reviews for the first time in, like, a year. And someone said "And Christine never sang again?" and went on to mention the possibility of Christine and Alex singing together more. And I thought of Charlotte and Jonathan. So, first off, watcht this because it's just plain freaking awesome and also because it's everything we've all been saying about not judging one another by appearances and so forth. And when you're done with that, watch it again, and let your eyes go out of focus, and pretend that this is Alex and Christine. It's not far from how they'd sound, to be honest... Christine's talented, but she's not operatically trained. And Alex... well, you might recall that Christine was blown away that his voice was so much better than she expected, so full and deep and rich. Reference the time they sang together in the art museum under the little dome.

And finally, to respond to the review that asks if Christine ever sang again... Of course she sang. She loves to sing. She's just choosing a different ultimate goal career-wise. She's not going to sing professionally (and to be realistic, that's a better choice, because although she sings well, she's not a prodigy or anything. She's just a girl who practiced hard and sings well. But of course, Christine and Alex sing together often. Mostly they sing along with the first two Bat Out of Hell albums by Meat Loaf (which, btw, might have been what Alex was playing that had too much squealing guitar in it that time). Their voices sound really good on "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" and "I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)." And they probably sing together publicly in college at least a little bit. Maybe they even perform at weddings. So yes. They sing amazing duets. And they're happy. This is one of very few things I've written with a happy ending, so I don't think I want to give that up. Maybe they even grow up and get married and stay together and everything. Because why wouldn't they? They get along great, he never takes her for granted, and she really does understand him finally.

Please post your thoughts on this beautiful video as reviews so we can all read each other's thoughts and share the awesomeness!


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